


Draco Malfoy and the Letter from the Future

by DracoWillHearAboutThis



Series: Do It All Over Again [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bullying, Draco & Harry Friendship, Draco questioning his parents' ideals, Harry Potter Series Retold, M/M, POV Draco Malfoy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-01-22 11:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12480304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoWillHearAboutThis/pseuds/DracoWillHearAboutThis
Summary: All he wanted was a way out. A way to do it all over again, and to erase his mistakes. He stared at the crackling blue flames so hard they imprinted in his vision.At age eleven, Draco receives a letter from the future, which will make him change the path he has set out upon and lead him into a life he'd never dared to imagine.





	1. Prologue: Ostende Mihi

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Draco Malfoy y La Carta del Futuro](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773151) by [Monocromatica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monocromatica/pseuds/Monocromatica)



> Hello readers!  
> Welcome to this new (slightly major) project of mine. This idea came to me a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't been able to shake it off ever since. I hope you will have as much fun reading it as I have writing it! This is the first part of a series with seven instalments, starting with The Philosopher's Stone and ending with The Deathly Hallows. Enjoy Draco's ride on the train of troublesome Gryffindors, and let me hear what you think :D
> 
> Disclaimer: This story will, for a large part, crawl along the original storyline by JKR, and you will come across passages that will be familiar as well as quotes from the books. Naturally, I claim no copyright for those. I am just borrowing them to twist the story into a new perspective. 
> 
> To the readers of my other ongoing story: I promise I have not forgotten Quidditch Chronicles, and I am still working on the next chapter. Things have been going slow, but please have some more patience with me, and don't hate me for dividing my attention between those two stories ;)

Draco was standing in front of the blue fire, his fingers grabbing onto the rolled up parchment in his hand so tightly they were about to cramp up. He was trembling from head to toe, and cold sweat was running down his neck.

This was insane. The most deranged thing he had ever done. He must be completely mental. And yet, he knew with total clarity that he was going to do it anyways.

It was exactly twenty-four minutes past two a.m.. In six hours and thirty-six minutes, he and his parents would be tried in front of the Wizengamot. The ancient clock hanging over the aged chimney in this old, almost forgotten part of their west wing seemed to be taunting him, counting down the seconds of his freedom. Maybe of his life, if things went badly. Because who said he was going to come out of this alive? The mark on his arm proved his guilt. Not to mention all the things he had done. He had almost killed both Katie Bell and Ron Weasley in his Sixth Year. He had led the Death Eaters into Hogwarts not much later, and it had resulted in Dumbledore’s death. He had tortured and hurt more people than he could count. He still felt sick every time he thought about all the things he had done, and the blood on his hands. He knew that the hateful things the Aurors had whispered at him when they had questioned him were right. He might have been kissed by the end of the day, and he would deserve it.

But he was scared. He did not want to die, not now, after he had made it out of this war alive. He and his parents were finally safe, only to have a wand held against their throats all over again. All he wanted was a way out. A way to do it all over again, and to erase his mistakes.

He stared at the crackling blue flames so hard they imprinted in his vision.

His father had told him about this chimney when he had still been very young. Long before he had even set foot into Hogwarts. He had explained that this fireplace was much more than just a regular entrance point to a Floo Network. That it had been part of this Manor from the days of its construction, and that it held some very ancient magic.

“ _You know about time turners, of course, but this magic was of a different, stronger variety. It was supposed to actually be able to reverse time. To send you back into your past, not just as a bystander, but into your actual body. You could relive those days all over again, or change the past.”_

“ _So,”_ Draco had asked, with big eyes. _“If I make a mistake, I can just hop in and make it right again?”_

“ _No,”_ his father had said immediately, shaking his head with a sudden solemnity to his expression. _“It was broken some centuries ago, and no one ever managed to fix it. Even trying would be the utmost stupidity. There is no way of finding out whether it’s safe or not to use it, because when you return to the past, you will have forgotten your future. Even if you succeed, you will not remember trying to have fixed it.”_

“ _But,”_ Draco had frowned. _“What if you wrote a message to your past self, explaining? What if you-”_

“ _Draco,”_ his father had interrupted him with a tone of absolute authority. _“Meddling with time is dangerous. If it goes wrong, you will forever be lost in the limbo of it. It is not worth the risk. Do you understand?”_

Draco had nodded, as he had always done when his father had told him what to do. Ever the good boy. Never going against his wishes.

And look where that had brought him.

Draco gulped, squeezing his fingers around the parchment in his hand.

Things were different now, though. This might be the last chance he had at making a difference for himself, and for his whole family. If he was likely to have been kissed by this time tomorrow, wasn’t the risk of being stuck in an eternal limbo of time worth taking?

Plus, he thought, his chances weren’t bad. He had managed to fix the Vanishing Cabinet, after all, and he had spent much more time on this project. All these hours when he had tried escaping from the madness going on in his own home, when he had needed something to do or else he would have gone loony, he had spent here, fiddling with this fireplace. He had read up on the spellwork in long forgotten tombs from hidden corners of their library, and everything looked as it should have. The flames were the exact right shade of blue, for one. Deep azure, not quite cobalt or royal. They weren’t hot to the touch, but they still emanated warmth. It was just like it had been described, and a long way from the scorching, turquoise fire he had started with.

“It’s as good as it’s going to get,” he muttered to himself, wincing at how shaky his own voice was.

This was his one chance to make things right. His one shot at being a good guy and choosing the winning side, instead of the one his father had pushed him to.

“Here goes,” he said. He took a deep, steady breath, before stepping into the flames. They tickled him through his clothes with their strange, magical heat, and it felt bizarre. “July 31st, 1991,” he exclaimed in a clear voice, with only a slight tremble to his words.

First, nothing happened, and Draco thought he had failed. Then, the blue flames rose around him, and just like they were supposed to, they turned white, blinding him and blocking everything else from his view.

>

  


Draco stumbled out of the chimney, coughing as he collided with the floor in a decidedly non-smooth manner. He blinked, looking around in confusion. What was he doing in the west wing? Had he not been in bed, unable to fall asleep thinking of the upcoming day, just a moment ago?

Draco watched numbly as the blue flames died down from the chimney, leaving the room in the soft light of the torches on the wall. The ancient clock above the fireplace gonged once, informing him that it was half-past two, in the middle of the night.

“What in Salazar’s name-” Draco muttered, before he took note of the parchment in his hand. He stared down at the way it lay in his hand, rolled up and sealed with the Malfoy emblem.

He took another suspicious look around, making sure he was alone, before sitting up and looking at the parchment once more. He broke the seal carefully, unrolling it to reveal a letter, written in green ink and a tidy script that seemed strangely familiar.

_Draco,_

_This will be hard to believe, but I am writing to you from the future. I fixed the fireplace (or better, you will, seven years ahead), and if I succeeded, this message will reach you in the year 1991, at age eleven, shortly before you start at Hogwarts._

_I returned us to this point in time to ask you to change our future, and save both our parents and us. In the past years, this family has made a lot of wrong choices, and I want you to unmake them for us._

_Befriend Harry Potter. You will meet him today at Madam Malkin’s, and I want you to make sure you end up on his good side. Don’t insult his friends, even if you feel the need to. Be polite, and in no way condescending. He doesn’t know much about our world, and if you play our cards right, you can be the one to show him the way around. If you blow it, like I did, he will hate you, and the consequences of that will go much farther than you can understand now. Be his friend. You will need him someday._

_Furthermore - and this is just as important as becoming Harry Potter’s friend - don’t believe everything Father tells you, and don’t make any decisions simply because you wish to please him. The ideals he is pursuing will be the ruin of this family, not only because they are wrong and bigoted, but because it will put you on the wrong side of a crucial conflict. Purebloods are no better than Half-Bloods, or even Muggleborns. Such a thing as ‘Blood traitors’ does not exist. Do not stick to these false prejudices._

_The Dark Side will not be the one who wins. Strive towards the light. Go to Hogwarts, make the right friends and stick to them._

_I know you won’t want to believe this letter. How would you, if it questions what Father taught you? But I can show you what your future will look like if you don’t listen to me._

_Hold onto this letter, and say_ ‘Ostende mihi’ _._

_If you don’t want what you will see to happen, be nice to Harry Potter when you meet him today._

_Yours,_

_Draco Malfoy, August 15th, 1998_

Draco gaped at the signature and the date next to it, incredulous. “Merlin’s pants,” he whispered. This was a trick, right? Somewhere in the corridor, Theodore Nott was listening in on him and laughing, he was sure of it. But at the same time, he was intrigued, and his eyes returned to the latin just a few paragraphs above.

“ _Ostende mihi,”_ he said and gasped when the writing washed from the letter at his words. Everything started spinning, and then, he found himself in the middle of a train compartment. The edges around him were blurry and washed out, but he had no time to focus on his surroundings because, at that moment, he heard himself speak, and whirled around to watch.

“ _You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter,”_ he heard himself say to a bespectacled boy with messy black hair. _“You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”_

He held out his hand for the boy to shake, but the other didn’t take it. Instead, he looked faintly angry.

“ _I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,”_ was all the answer he got, and Draco saw himself flush both in shock and rage.

The scenery changed then. Everything started spinning once more, and he found himself standing in a large bathroom. By the sinks, a boy had sunken to the floor, sobbing. The boy had blond hair like his, but he was much older, and he was wearing Slytherin robes. A ghost of a girl was floating over him, making cooing sounds.

“ _I can’t do it,”_ the boy sobbed. _“I’m going to fail, and then he will kill my parents. Kill me.”_

The ghost was saying something, but Draco could not make it out. The room was spinning again, and next, he found himself in a room so spacey that it seemed to have no walls, and which was packed with odd things as far as the eye reached. He found the same boy again, screaming and running from flames that were quickly spreading through the room. Draco had just enough time to recognize the boy. It was him, Draco, years and years in the future. The same Draco that had written him the letter.

His own screams still hung in his ears when the scenery changed again, and he found himself in the fresh air, looking up at a burning castle. With a start, he recognized it as Hogwarts.

When he found himself back in the west wing of the manor, he was shaking like a leaf. He dropped the letter and crawled away from it until his back hit the door.

“No,” Draco whispered, not sure if he wanted to scream or cry. “No.”

The words of advice written in the letter kept ringing through his head, now in the voice of the older Draco.

_If you don’t want this to happen, be nice to Harry Potter when you meet him today._


	2. Chapter One: Befriending the Boy Who Lived

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, folks! Thank you for your amazing response to the prologue! I really hope this first chapter lives up to your expectations and does not disappoint! ;)
> 
> Please don't get used to the fast updates - I have written ahead a little, and this chapter was mostly done when I posted the prologue and just needed some adjustments. For all the following chapters, though, my beta and I might need some more time, so please be patient with us :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading, and please let me know what you think :)

“Draco,” his mother said softly, making him look up from where he had been blankly staring at the Filibuster Fireworks on display in Gambol Jabes Joke Shop. “What’s wrong, darling? You’re so absent-minded today. You haven’t even talked our ears off about getting you a broom.”

“Don’t encourage him, Narcissa,” his father drawled, a slow smile on his face. “I was quite enjoying the silence.”

His mother rolled her blue eyes at her husband’s input, but she was smiling at Draco expectantly.

“I’m fine,” Draco said, a little too quickly. “I was just thinking.”

“Dangerous pastime, son,” his father said, only half-joking. “Every time you think, you get ridiculous ideas, and I have to take time out of my day to answer your myriad of questions. Now, off you go to get your school robes, we don’t have all day! I will just drop in with Flourish and Blotts to check if they have that new volume I’ve been looking for. I will pick you up when I’m done.”

With that, his father turned in a flurry of robes, striding off towards the bookshop further down the street. Draco looked back up at his mother, to find that she was still watching him quizzically. 

“Now that your father is gone,” she told him with a secret smile. “What is it that’s on your mind, dear?”

Draco gulped, shifting on his feet. All his instincts told him to tell his parents about the letter he had received last night, but the words of what was supposedly his future self made him hesitant. If the writer of the letter was right, then his father’s opinion was not to be trusted - but how could he find out if the writer of the letter was to be trusted, without asking for the opinion of his parents?

“If you received a letter from someone claiming to be your future self,” Draco blurted out finally, meeting his mother’s eyes. “Would you believe it?”

His mother rose her eyebrows at him, looking amused. 

“Have you been up last night reading those novels again, Draco?,” she asked. 

“Might have,” Draco shrugged, figuring it was as good an excuse as any. “But I was just wondering how realistic it is. How can you know the letter is not a trick? Anyone could have written it, couldn’t they?”

His mother hummed thoughtfully. 

“I guess so,” she said finally, frowning. “It would depend on the content of the letter, and if the things the letter predicts really end up happening.”

“In the book, memories were attached to the letter,” Draco muttered, his heart hammering inside his chest. “Of their past, or, in other words, the character’s future. Can things like these be faked?”

“Of course they can,” Narcissa conceded. “But it takes impressive magical skills to do it convincingly. And, of course, someone would need a motive to go to such lengths.”

Draco gulped. That excluded Theodore Nott, in the very least. But really, who would want Draco to rebel against his parents, and to befriend Harry Potter? All grown wizards Draco knew were acquaintances of his parents, and they all shared their family’s ideals. None of them would benefit from Draco being led to doubt what he had been taught. 

“You should go get yourself fitted into your new robes, darling,” his mother’s voice broke through his thoughts again. “Be sure to get a new set of dress robes, too. You’ve outgrown yours. Can you go by yourself? I’d like to have a look at Ollivanders in the meantime.”

“Sure,” Draco nodded, sending her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Leave it to me, Mother.”

His mother squeezed his shoulder once, and then, she too left to stroll further down the street. Draco watched her disappear into the crowd before he turned hesitantly to look at Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions. 

His mother had suggested finding out whether the predictions of the letter came true, Draco reminded himself. That meant if Harry Potter really turned up at Madam Malkin’s while Draco was there, the chances that the letter was real were pretty high. Because, really, who did he know that could foresee when both Draco and the famous Harry Potter, who’d been kept from the Wizarding World for ten years, would enter the same Robe Shop? No one could manipulate that, could they? 

Steeling himself, Draco entered the shop and suffered through the fussing of the plumb owner and her handsy assistant. Nervously, he kept glancing at the door as his oversized robes were pinned to the right length, waiting for the door to open. 

When it finally did, Draco almost tumbled down the stool he was standing on. Because in came the same boy with messy dark hair that he had seen in the memory the letter had shown him. He wore ridiculously big and dingy Muggle clothes Draco would have turned his nose up at under normal circumstances, and ridiculously old-fashioned glasses, which seemed to be held together by some cheap kind of Spello-tape. The boy seemed intimidated, looking into the shop with the air of someone unsure whether they ought to be there before Madam Malkin rounded in on him. 

“Hogwarts, dear?” she asked, and the boy nodded hastily. “Got the lot here - another young man being fitted up just now, in fact.” She shooed him over to where Draco was standing on his chair, conjuring a similar one for the other boy to stand on and pulled a robe over his head to begin her work. 

Draco fingers were trembling slightly as he worked up the nerve to speak.

“Hullo,” he said, trying to seem unaffected. “Hogwarts, too?”

“Yes,” said the boy, looking over at him, rather shyly. 

“I’m Draco,” Draco introduced himself. “Draco Malfoy.”

“Harry Potter,” the boy answered with a tentative smile. 

The effects of these words were immediate: Draco’s breath came out in a gasp as the shop assistant pushed a pin into his side in shock, and Madam Malkin made a noise that sounded like a Kneazle that had its tail stepped on, staring up at the boy in front of her in shock. Harry Potter himself, though, seemed rather alarmed at that reaction, and he flushed uncomfortably. 

“Nice to meet you,” Draco said, at last, forcing himself to smile in a way that would seem friendly, but not too eager so that he wouldn’t come around like an excited fan. The last thing he needed was for Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived, to think he was a loser. “Is this your first time to Diagon Alley?”

“It is, actually,” Harry answered, seeming thankful for the conversation turning away from his name. “You’ve been here before?”

“Loads of times,” Draco shrugged, automatically adapting a tone of superiority before he stopped himself. _Be polite, and in no way condescending_ , the letter had said. “I mean,” Draco added hastily, his voice rather small. “My parents take me along on their shopping every once in a while.”

“I see,” Harry nodded, shifting on his feet, seeming nervous again. “So your parents are wizards, too?”

“Of course,” Draco confirmed immediately. “The Malfoy’s are one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.” The moment the words were out, he wanted to kick himself. No talk about his Pureblood status, the letter had warned. What the heck was he doing?!

“The what?,” Harry asked, looking rather lost.

“Nevermind,” Draco shook his head. “It’s not important. What I mean is, yes, they are wizards.”

“You must know all about magic already, then,” Harry said, looking rather miserable.

“Don’t you worry, dear,” Madam Malkin injected kindly, throwing Draco a disapproving look. “There will be lots of students from Muggle families, and even the most pure-blooded wizards need to go to school to learn.”

“Right,” Draco said quickly. “You’ll pick everything up quickly, I’m sure.”

“So it doesn’t make any difference?,” Harry checked, his voice quiet as he met Draco’s eyes with rather bright green ones behind his shabby glasses. “Having grown up in a Muggle family?”

Draco’s heart beat fast as he held Harry’s gaze. 

“No,” he answered, with determination. “It doesn’t.”

Harry smiled at that, seeming relieved. 

“Good,” he nodded.

“And if you have any questions, you can always ask me,” Draco offered. “I can help you find your way around.”

“Thanks,” Harry replied, his smile widening. “It will be nice, knowing someone before getting to school. I’m usually alone everywhere.” He clasped his mouth shut as if thinking he had said too much. 

“Well, you won’t be at Hogwarts,” Draco promised. He gulped down the part about how everyone was going to want to be his friend the moment they had heard his name and continued instead: “Maybe we’ll end up in the same house, even!”

“The same house?,” Harry asked curiously, and Draco was going to answer when Madam Malkin said: “That’s you done, my dear,” and removed the finished robes from Harry’s shoulders. As Harry got down from his chair, he spotted a giant of a man through the window holding two cones of ice cream, and Harry waved at him happily. 

“I’ve got to go,” Harry said, turning to him. “I’ll see you at Hogwarts then, Draco!”

“Yes,” Draco nodded, smiling back at him. “See you!”

Draco watched Harry as he paid for his robes at the counter and made his way out of the shop. The huge, bearded man pressed the ice cream into his hand, and they took off down the street, chatting happily. Draco wished he could follow, and cursed the dress robes his mother had asked him to get. 

But all in all, this had gone well, he decided. Harry had seemed pleased to meet him, and Draco had not insulted any of his friends. At least not that he realised. Yes, he would have to work on keeping his mouth shut about being a pureblood, but old habits died hard, so he didn’t think he could be blamed for his slip. Important was that he had met Harry Potter at Madam Malkin’s, the way the letter had predicted, and the boy had not ended up hating him.

He could work his way towards the rest. 

  


Draco decided not to tell his parents about meeting Harry Potter. While he thought that they would not exactly disapprove of his attempt at befriending the famous boy (his father always went on and on about how important connections and public esteem were), he figured it would be best to keep his ambitions to himself, out of fear of being influenced in a way that would end up ruining his chances of success. 

In the long weeks of August, he’d had a lot of time to consider the letter and its contents. He was fairly certain of its authenticity after meeting Harry for himself, and the implications of that had left his mind spinning for days after. Draco had been raised with firm beliefs of the superiority of his blood and status, and now, with one letter, all that seemed to be crashing down around him, and he did not quite know what to do with himself. If he was not Draco Malfoy, heir of the Malfoy family and pureblood aristocracy, who was he? He spent days and days in the library of the Manor, reading essays on the topic that he never fully understood and that left him more confused than before. He mulled over his questions at night, restlessly wondering if he was really willing to throw the belief in his heritage away for a dubious letter from the future.

But then he remembered the memories he'd seen and the general feeling of desperation that had emanated from them. He was unsure what exactly they meant, and what the future Draco had been through entailed, but he knew that none of it was good and that he did not want it to happen to him.

And if that meant befriending Harry Potter and turning his back on what he had been taught, maybe, it was worth it, in the end. 

When September First finally approached, Draco became all the more restless. What if Harry decided he did not like him once he got to know him better? Draco had never had to befriend anyone without the help of his family name or the connections of his parents before. All kids he had ever hung out with were children of the acquaintances of his father, and even among them, he was unsure who to call a friend. Crabbe and Goyle would be the closest thing, but that was only because they were too dumb to contradict him and just followed along. Others, like Theodore Nott, were the bane of his existence rather than what he would call “friends”. What exactly did one have to do to make friends? Not insulting people Harry liked and not boasting over his blood status would only get Draco this far. What did you talk about with someone you barely knew, and who had grown up in a world different from your own? 

“Are you sure you have everything?,” his mother asked as she levitated his trunk down the stairs towards the entrance hall, looking at him inquiringly. “Robes? Books? Potions supplies? Quill and parchment?”

“Yes, Mother,” Draco rolled his eyes, carefully carrying the cage containing his beloved eagle owl down behind her. “You were there when the elves packed it. You know everything is there.”

“It doesn’t hurt to check twice,” his mother shrugged, setting down the trunk at the foot of the stairs the same moment his father entered the entrance hall.

“Ready, Draco? ” he asked, in unusually high spirits. In the last couple of days, Draco had gotten the impression that his father was just as excited for him to start school as Draco himself, if not more. He had gone on and on about the classes and the teachers, the Slytherin house and the extracurricular activities he wanted him to consider. Draco took those bits of advice as what they were: the pressure of great expectations, and the demand to come home with results befitting of the Malfoy name. The thought left a sour taste in Draco’s mouth. “Our portkey leaves in exactly one minute. ” He held up an antique silver goblet demonstratively with one hand and summoned Draco’s trunk with his other. His mother smiled at Draco as she put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it as they joined his father. 

Lucius Malfoy was already counting down the seconds, his eyes on his wristwatch, and Draco held onto the cage under his arm tightly as he touched a finger to the goblet, right next to where his mother’s rested. As his father’s count reached zero, the world started spinning, and Draco closed his eyes, focusing on holding himself upright. When his feet touched the ground again, they had arrived at the apparition point near King’s Cross. 

“Here we are,” his father announced cheerfully, pocketing the goblet and pulling Draco’s trunk behind himself as he set off towards the entrance of the station. Draco hastened to follow him, sending nervous looks to the Muggles nearby who frowned at their robes and his owl. Aquila let out an indignant sound as if he too condoned the judging looks. 

As they neared the alcove between platforms nine and ten, Draco’s mother explained in a hushed voice which barrier he needed to pass to get to the magical platform, and Draco observed carefully as his father went ahead and disappeared from sight, before doing his best to copy him. 

Platform nine and three quarters was busy when he appeared, bustling with wizards and witches and cats and owls, and Draco immediately stretched his neck trying to spot Harry. 

“Look, there are Linda and Gregory,” his mother pointed out the Goyle Family, misinterpreting his searching gaze, and Draco resigned himself of a long while of watching their parents do the talking while receiving only one-syllable answers from the burly boy with him. 

All in all, he was glad when they could excuse themselves to the train after the arrival of the Crabbe’s, under the pretence of wanting to capture the best available seats. His mother fussed over him some more in parting, reminding him to write regularly, work hard and stay out of trouble, and then, they were finally free to explore the train. 

In his search for Harry, Draco chased Crabbe and Goyle down two wagons of mostly free seats before they started to complain, and finally settled in an empty compartment. Draco took the window seat and watched the passing wizards closely, hoping to spot the messy-haired, bespectacled boy, but when the train finally took off, he had still not found him. 

“Do you think there is any food here?,” Crabbe grunted, the first full sentence he had spoken that day. 

“I think there is a trolley coming through at some point, selling sweets,” Draco drawled, waving absentmindedly at his mother as they sped away. “Shall we go look for it?,” he suggested, jumping at the excuse to investigate the train some more. 

“But we just sat down,” Goyle complained moodily, though when Draco sent him an annoyed look, he closed his mouth and got to his feet. 

It took them ages to get from one side of the train to the other, and then, still not having found Harry, they had to go all the way back again, towards the other side. They passed the trolley twice on their way, but Draco ignored Crabbe and Goyle’s complaints as he pushed on, searching. At last, Draco spotted Harry in a compartment right towards the end, excitedly chatting with a red-headed boy, empty and half-eaten containers of Chocolate Frogs, Bertie Botts Beans and other sweets all over the place. 

When Draco pushed the door open, Harry looked up and smiled brightly at him. 

“Draco!,” he called. “I wondered when I would meet you!”

“Hello, Harry,” Draco returned, a relieved grin spreading over his face. He looked over to the red-headed boy, noting that suspicious blue eyes were looking him up and down. Draco took a short moment to take inventory of the shade of his hair and the shabby clothes, immediately identifying as a member of the Weasley family his father had ranted on about so often. His heart sank a bit.

“Oh, this is Ron,” Harry introduced him cheerfully, following Draco’s gaze. “Ron, this is Draco. I met him in Diagon Alley a couple of weeks ago.”

“I see,” the boy said slowly, nodding his head in greeting. “Ron Weasley. Nice to meet you.”

“Draco Malfoy,” Draco answered, noting the Weasley boy’s eyes narrowing just so slightly at hearing his last name. “Pleasure.” Then, only just remembering they were there, he waved to the boys behind him. “This is Crabbe and Goyle.” The two of them grunted, in apparent confusion as to why they were even there, talking to these people. 

“Hello, I’m Harry Potter,” Harry introduced himself, and Draco did not need to turn to know their eyes had grown the size of saucers at those words. There was a stunned silence. Harry met Draco’s eyes, looking unsure. 

“You want to sit down? ” he offered, gathering some of the wrappers and pushing them hastily off the seat next to him. Draco ignored the mess and took the seat. He saw Weasley exchange cautious looks with Crabbe and Goyle as they remained standing. 

“Ron was just telling me about Quidditch,” Harry said conversationally, and Draco frowned.

“You play?,” he asked Weasley, trying to keep his voice even and free of judgement.

“Yes,” Weasley shrugged, somewhat defiantly. “Since I’ve been young, with my brothers. Charlie was Gryffindor’s Seeker before he graduated, and Fred and George are Beaters on the team.”

“I see,” Draco nodded. “I wished First Year’s could own a broom and try out, too,” he huffed.

“I know!,” Weasley agreed in frustration, apparently momentarily forgetting his suspicion of Draco. “It’s so unfair! Who is to say we aren’t good enough?!”

“Exactly!,” Draco stressed. “I’ve been flying since I could walk! That’s more than some Seventh Year who never touched a broom before coming to Hogwarts can say!” He remembered Harry’s background at this point, and added quickly: “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing…” He turned to Harry, trying to smile reassuringly, and Harry smiled back, making it worth his effort.

Draco noted Crabbe and Goyle exchanging startled looks. 

“So,” he asked, turning to Weasley in an attempt to keep the conversation going. “Do you follow the league? Which is your favourite team?”

“The Chudley Cannons,” Weasley answered proudly. “You?”

“My family has season tickets to the Falcons,” Draco shrugged. “A little sad I can’t go anymore, but then again, we can watch the house championship.”

“Right,” Weasley frowned, his eyes narrowing. “I guess you’ll be in Slytherin?,” he prodded, an edge to his voice. 

“Well, my whole family was in Slytherin, so I would think so,” Draco said casually, and saw Weasley exchange a meaningful look with Harry. “What? ” he demanded, a little defensively. “Is there a problem with that?”

“No,” Harry protested, too quickly, shaking his head. “Not at all. We were just talking about houses earlier, and how I’ll probably end up in Hufflepuff because I know nothing.”

“You’re not going to be a _Hufflepuff_ ,” Draco frowned, scandalised. “Knowledge of the Wizarding World doesn’t decide over which house you end up in. It’s the character that counts.”

“I told him that, too,” Weasley nodded. “Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine.”

Crabbe cleared his throat, and Draco looked up, once again having forgotten their presence. 

“Should we go and meet Nott? ” Crabbe asked. “We passed his compartment earlier.”

“You can go, if you want,” Draco drawled. “I’ll stay here.” The two boys exchanged reluctant looks at that. “It’s okay,” Draco repeated. “I’ll catch up with you.”

Finally, the two of them shrugged and turned to leave. Silence fell upon their compartment as the door fell closed behind them.

“Is it okay, not to go with your friends?" Harry asked.

“I wouldn’t call them ‘friends’,” Draco shrugged. “They are the sons of Father’s acquaintances. I’ve just known them for a long time.”

“Your father is Lucius Malfoy, right?” Weasley asked suddenly.

“Yes,” Draco answered, uncomfortable with the subject. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Weasley shrugged, but his tone indicated that it wasn’t ‘nothing’ at all. Draco’s instinct was to call him out on it, but he was pretty sure that nothing Ron Weasley would have to say about his father could be positive, and he did not want Harry to hear any of it if he could help it. 

So he turned to Harry and started babbling about what he had heard about their classes and teachers, and Harry seemed eager to listen. Weasley joined in reluctantly, and their conversation went on until a bossy, bushy-haired girl pushed open the door to announce they would arrive soon and to tell Harry and Weasley to change into their robes. 

Draco then returned to his own compartment to collect his things, only to find that Theodore Nott had settled with Crabbe and Goyle, apparently having a blast. He was talking animatedly as Draco pushed the door open, and when he turned to look at him, his smirk widening.

“Malfoy!,” he called. “I heard you made friends with the youngest Weasley boy!” He snickered, and Crabbe and Goyle shifted nervously.

“Just for your information,” Draco sneered, stepping into the compartment and letting the door fall closed behind him. “I was there because of Harry Potter. Because, unlike you, I strive to make the most useful and influential friends I can while at Hogwarts.” 

Nott snorted, and Draco stretched to pick up his sleeping owl, quite satisfied with himself.

“If I were you, I’d be careful not to be seen with blood traitors and the like,” Nott scoffed. “I’m sure your father wouldn’t be pleased.”

“Let that be my worry,” Draco sniffed. He held onto the wall as the train started to slow down, keeping his balance just so. Aquila unstuck his head from under his wing, looking at Draco indignantly. “We seem to be here,” Draco announced, looking at Crabbe and Goyle. “You coming?”

The boys exchanged startled looks before looking at Nott for instruction. Draco frowned.

“Why don’t you go and catch up with your best pal, Weasley,” Nott smirked. “We will be nearby. Laughing.”

Draco sneered at him, clinging to the cage in his hands.

“Whatever,” he huffed. “Not like I care what you do.”

And with that, he turned and left the compartment, off to find Harry. 

  


The Hogwarts castle was stunning, even for someone who had grown up in a Manor and was used to magic. Still, Draco found himself watching Harry almost as much as he was taking in his new school. The expression of utter fascination on Harry’s face brought him inexplicable joy. All his life, his father had gone on and on about his view that children from non-magical backgrounds should never be admitted. That they would never understand their traditions and way of life, and that they were a danger to the Wizarding community at large. But seeing Harry’s innocent enthusiasm, he could not relate to his father’s words at all. What harm could someone like Harry possibly bring to anyone?

After they had crossed the lake with Hagrid, the gamekeeper and the very same giant of a man Draco had seen Harry with at Diagon Alley, the doors to the castle opened, and they were given into the care of Professor McGonagall, who Draco knew was Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor House. His father had warned him never to cross her, since she was apparently a very strict woman who was not to be tampered with, and meeting her for himself, Draco could immediately tell that he had been right in that aspect.

“The firs'-years, Professor McGonagall,” Hagrid said importantly, gesturing to the lot of them at large.

“Thank you, Hagrid,” she returned cordially. “I will take them from here.”

And with that, she led them into the huge entrance hall, past the doors to the famous Great Hall and into a small side room.

“Welcome to Hogwarts!,” she called, when they had all filed in. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room.” 

As Professor McGonagall went on to introduce the four houses, Draco sneaked a look at Harry, who was listening to the teacher with full attention. He hoped, with all his might, that Harry would end up in Slytherin with him. For a moment, he let himself dream of sharing a dormitory with him and sitting in the common room every evening playing chess or just talking. Making fun of Nott together. 

“I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours,” Professor McGonagall finished, and Draco snapped back to attention. “The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.” Her eyes travelled over Longbottom and Weasley, and Draco had to suppress a smile. He noted Harry desperately trying to flatten his messy hair next to him as Professor McGonagall told them to wait for her return, and left. 

“How exactly do they sort us into houses?” Harry asked both Draco and Weasley the moment she had closed the door behind herself. 

“Some sort of test, I think,” Weasley answered with a frown. “Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”

“Oh, come off it,” Draco rolled his eyes. “There’s no _test_. Father said some kind of old magical artefact decided over it, in lieu of the four founders.”

Weasley seemed irked at being contradicted, but Harry relaxed slightly. 

“So I don’t have to do any magic?,” he checked with Draco.

“Of course not,” Draco reassured him. “Imagine a bunch of First Years attempting to cast spells without instruction and blowing up the Great Hall! No, I don’t think we have to do anything.”

“Good,” Harry nodded, taking a deep breath. “Good.”

Then, they were all distracted by the unexpected entrance of the school ghosts, which made several people scream, and Draco clasp at Harry’s elbow in shock, though he felt incredibly stupid at his overreaction. He was thankful when Professor McGonagall returned and ordered them to form a line and follow her outside. Harry ended up behind him, with Weasley in his shadow, and the bushy-haired girl they had met in the train in front of Draco. The girl was muttering to herself furiously, and Draco eyed her warily. 

As they entered the Great Hall, though, Draco was momentarily distracted. The Malfoy Manor was grand, of course, but no room in there could compare to what he saw here. The ceiling was spelled invisible, showing the bright starlit sky outside, and Draco couldn’t help but stare at it in awe. 

“It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside, I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_ ,” the girl in front of him explained importantly as they passed down four long tables - the house tables, Draco supposed - and the other students were looking at them curiously, making Draco walk a little straighter. 

They came to a stop in front of the teacher’s table, and Professor McGonagall put down a stool in front of them, on which she gently placed an old, battered hat. Draco made a face at the state of it, hoping they didn’t have to touch it. 

Silence fell upon the hall, and then, to his surprise, the hat opened a ridge-like mouth and started singing. 

“ _Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,_

_But don’t judge on what you see,_

_I’ll eat myself if you can find_

_A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_

_Your top hats sleek and tall,_

_For I’m the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_

_And I can cap them all._

_There’s nothing hidden in your head_

_The Sorting Hat can’t see,_

_So try me on and I will tell you_

_Where you ought to be.”_

Draco smirked, turning to Harry to point out that he had been right and they just had to try on a hat, but his voice died in his throat as he saw the focused look in the other boy’s face. He looked at the sparkle in those green eyes for a moment longer, before focusing back on the scene in front of him. 

“ _So put me on! Don’t be afraid!_

_And don’t get in a flap!_

_You’re in safe hands (though I have none)_

_For I’m a Thinking Cap!”_

The hall burst into applause, and Draco joined in, grinning as Weasley muttered to Harry: “I’ll kill Fred! He was going on about wrestling a troll!” Draco suppressed a comment about how it probably wasn’t hard to fool Weasley. He couldn’t blame his brother. He was practically asking for it.

Professor McGonagall then stepped forwards, a roll of parchment in her hand, and began to call out names. One by one, the students went up, sat on the stool and let her lower the hat onto their heads. After varying intervals, the hat called out their house, and they went to sit at their respective tables under loud cheers. 

Draco noted that Harry looked practically green in the face the more people were called forwards, and he touched his fingers to his elbow, making the other boy look over to him nervously.

“It will be alright,” he whispered. “Don’t you worry.”

Harry tried to smile at him, but it came out as a grimace. 

“Granger, Hermione,” Professor McGonagall called, and Draco noted the strange girl next to him storming towards the stool in an overly eager manner. 

“Gryffindor!,” shouted the hat. Weasley groaned. Draco smiled. At least he did not have to deal with that one all that much. 

It wasn’t long then, until Professor McGonagall called his name. Draco took a deep breath, straightened himself and tried to seem unaffected as he walked over to the stool and sat down. He closed his eyes as the hat was lowered onto his head, and immediately, it shouted: “Slytherin!”

Draco smiled as he got to his feet. He tried to catch Harry’s eyes in encouragement, but the other boy was frowning, looking slightly unhappy. 

His housemates were cheering as he took his seat at the Slytherin table, but Draco immediately craned his neck for Harry, nervously waiting for Harry to be called forward. When he was, murmurs broke out over the whole hall, but Draco ignored them as he bit his lip, wishing with all his might that Harry would join him at the Slytherin table. 

The Sorting Hat took his time with Harry, and Draco saw the other boy clasp his hands around the edges of the stool. He wished he could see his face, but the hat was so big it was covering it almost entirely. Finally, the hat called: “Gryffindor!”

Draco’s heart sank. He felt numb as he watched Harry cross the room to take a seat at the Gryffindor table, accompanied by spectacular cheers of his housemates. He could even hear some people chant: “We got Potter! We got Potter!” A red-headed boy was shaking Harry’s hand enthusiastically, and Draco wondered, quite miserably, if he was related to Weasley. 

“Wish you’d been chosen for Gryffindor now, do you, Malfoy?,” Nott scoffed, smirking, but Draco did not dignify him with an answer. He was too busy trying to hide his disappointment. 

  


After the last students had been sorted into their houses and Weasley had joined Harry in Gryffindor, the feast began, and after that, the Headmaster Albus Dumbledore stood to give some notices, but Draco found it hard to focus on any of it. The other First Years in his house seemed to have gathered around Nott, including Crabbe and Goyle, and Draco found himself alone among the masses. He kept throwing longing glances over to where Harry was sitting with Weasley, chatting enthusiastically, and cursed the unfairness of the situation. He had met Harry first! It should be Draco next to him and not some dim-witted Weasley! Even worse, despite how hard Draco had tried being polite to the boy, it was very clear that Weasley disliked Draco. Who knew what he would tell Harry about his family? Draco was sure that Weasley would try everything he could to prevent Draco from befriending Harry, and with them being in separate houses, Draco was in clear disadvantage. Weasley would get to share his dormitory, meals, classes and common room, and Draco would be lucky if he got to talk to Harry for a moment in the corridors. How would he manage to grow close to him that way?

The thought despaired Draco not just because of the letter, but because he found he honestly liked Harry. He’d never felt the particular need to befriend another person before, but he really wanted to be Harry’s friend. And after spending time with him, the people he usually spent time with felt like a poor consolation prize. 

When the feast ended, the Prefects led them down to their quarters in the dungeons. Nott was chatting excitedly as they settled into their dormitory (though no one really answered him - Blaise Zabini was a quiet sort of fellow, and Crabbe and Goyle had gone back to their usual, eloquent way of communication - one-syllable grunts), and Draco felt frustrated and terribly alone as he threw himself onto his bed, staring up at canopy of his four-poster bed. 

“If you’re going to cry about not being sorted into Gryffindor, Malfoy, please draw the curtains first,” Nott snickered. “I’d hate to watch such a pathetic sight.”

Draco showed him the middle-finger and drew his curtains anyways, keen for some privacy. As he heard Nott laugh, he pressed his eyes closed, demanding himself not to prove the git right in his statement. 


	3. Chapter Two: Associating with Blood Traitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back with the second chapter :) Thanks a lot for all your encouraging comments! I realise that currently, the story still flows pretty much parallel to the original, but take my word for it when I promise it will develop a mind of its own the more Draco becomes involved with Harry. For now, I hope you don't mind the tightrope walk between canon and the Draco-inclusive plotline too much!
> 
> Please enjoy Draco's journey on befriending the Gryffindors, and let me know what you think :)

Draco’s first week at Hogwarts was, frankly speaking, hell.

For one, Draco barely had an opportunity to speak to Harry at all. He caught him once, towards the evening of their first day of classes, but they weren’t able to exchange more than a couple of words, and Weasley was with them, still watching Draco like he expected him to attack Harry at any moment. The days after, he only ever saw Harry from afar, and the bright smiles and waves the other boy sent him were barely any consolation for his dull mood.

In addition, Theodore Nott had spread amongst all their housemates, First Years and above, that Draco Malfoy had made friends with blood traitors. The consequence of that was complete expulsion from all social circles within Slytherin house, as well as dirty looks following him everywhere, and scornful whispers behind his back.

But Nott did not stop there. Apparently not satisfied unless he felt Draco had been thoroughly humiliated, he put an extra effort into making his life difficult. His third day at Hogwarts, Draco woke up to a bucket of ice-cold water being poured right into his face.

“Maybe like this, we can wash off the mud Weasley and Potter left on you,” Nott had snickered. “But I suppose it’s a lost cause.”

The day after, Draco had come back to his dormitory to find the homework he had done the night before lying on the pillow of his bed, drenched with ink. That night, Draco had stayed up to redo all of it and had slept the remaining few hours in an ink-stained bed.

On Friday, the morning of their first potions lesson, he found all his school robes torn, the Slytherin emblem cut from them and his green-silver ties chopped into stripes.

“Now you can get proper Gryffindor robes like you want to,” Nott and left the room, Crabbe and Goyle following after him dutifully.

Draco stared at the scraps of his clothes mutely, ordering himself not to cry. He tried desperately to patch them up before class, skipping breakfast, but he didn’t know enough magic to do it, so it was a hopeless endeavour. In the end, he was forced to venture out of the common room in only shirt and trousers.

Thankfully, the Potions classroom was down in the dungeons and therefore not far from their common room, but it was the only class the Slytherins shared with the Gryffindors, meaning Harry would be present. And Harry was the last person Draco wanted to be humiliated in front of, but his other choice was skipping class, which was not an option. So he dragged himself through the dungeons with hung shoulders, and when he finally reached the group of his waiting classmates, he felt like he was going to be sick.

“Draco!,” Harry called happily, waving Draco over, before blinking, taking in his clothes. “Why are you not wearing your robes? ” he asked in confusion.

Draco made a face and offered an awkward shrug.

“You’re going to get points taken from your house! ” the bushy-haired girl, Granger, threw in sternly as she appeared next to Harry.

“Oh no,” Nott mock-gasped from across the corridor, and a hush went through the group of blabbering students until everyone was watching the scene. “You’d better lend him some robes, Potter. He has no Slytherin pride as it is. Why don’t you adopt him and save us the troubles of having to look at his face day by day?”

“Shut it, Nott!,” Draco hissed, flushing darkly and cursing his life. “You’re pathetic!”

“Says the one who associates with blood traitors,” Nott snorted.

“ _What_ did you just call us?!,” Weasley snarled, colour rising rapidly in his face. Harry was just staring at Nott in disgust, though it was clear that he had not understood his insult.

“Ignore him,” Draco bit out, in the same moment that Professor Snape opened the door to the classroom, his eyes narrowing immediately as he took in the scene in front of him.

“What’s going on here? ” he demanded, an expression of displeasure on his face. “Mr Malfoy, why are you not properly dressed?”

Draco shifted under the sharp gaze of his head of house, lowering his eyes to the floor in embarrassment.

“I got something on them,” he lied, and Nott snickered in the background.

“All of them?,” the Professor prodded, eyes narrowing further. “Your ties, too?”

Draco shrugged, not knowing how to answer. He could feel Harry’s eyes on him. There was a short pause before Snape said evenly: “One point from Slytherin. And you’d better take care of this, Mr Malfoy, before I have to deduct more.”

“Yes, Sir,” Draco nodded miserably, and then followed his classmates as they filed into the room.

He was resigned to finding an empty table to sit by himself again, the way he had been forced to do throughout all of his classes, but before he could, a firm hand had closed around his elbow and dragged him into an empty seat. He looked up into Harry’s grim face.

“You’ll sit with me,” he announced firmly, only stopping a moment to throw an apologetic look at Weasley over his shoulder. The redhead shrugged and took the free seat next to Neville Longbottom at the table right behind them, looking resigned.

“What did Nott do to your robes?” Harry hissed under his breath, his startling green eyes zooming in on him behind those ridiculous glasses.

“Later,” Draco muttered, busily withdrawing his potions book, some parchment and a quill. Harry copied him, a frown on his face.

Professor Snape started taking their names, then. When he reached Harry’s name, he paused for a moment, his lip curling unpleasantly.

“Ah, yes,” he drawled. “Our new _celebrity_.”

Nott sniggered from across the room, and most of the Slytherins joined him. Draco frowned. When the Professor finally looked up at the class, they all fell silent.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” Snape began. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

Excitement surged through Draco at those words. Potions had been one of the classes he had been looking forward to most - not only was he intrigued by the idea of creating things with his own hands, but his father had spoken of Snape in high tones. Though, Draco added in an afterthought, it appeared that his father’s judgement was to be doubted, meaning he had to be careful there.

“Potter,” Snape said suddenly, and Draco blinked, looking at the boy next to him, who seemed equally as confused. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

Harry gaped, looking at Draco for help. Draco shrugged his shoulders, equally as clueless. At the table in front of them, Granger had raised her hand in excitement.

“I don’t know, Sir,” Harry answered finally.

“Tut tut,” Snape sneered, and Draco’s frown deepened. “Fame clearly isn’t everything.” Ignoring Granger completely, he continued: “Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?”

While Granger stretched in her seat, desperate to be called on, Draco just stared at Snape in a mix between confusion and creeping dislike. Nott, Crabbe and Goyle had difficulties stifling their laughter now, and Harry had flushed ever so slightly.

“I don’t know, Sir,” he replied again.

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" Snape sneered, and Draco’s eyes widened in disbelief. What was he on about?! He couldn’t have expected any of them to learn their textbooks by heart before even starting school! (Even though, his mind added, Granger seemed to have done exactly that.) And even if he had had unrealistic expectations like that, why single out Harry that way?!

“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?” Snape continued, and Draco narrowed his eyes at the Professor, starting to feel indignant anger at his only friend being attacked like that.

Granger had now gotten to her feet in an attempt at gaining Snape’s attention, but the teacher’s dark eyes were still zoomed in on Harry in something like maliciousness.

“I don’t know,” Harry said quietly. His expression was defiant. “I think Hermione does, though. Why don’t you try her?”

The Gryffindors laughed, and Draco had to bite down on a smile. A part of him, the part that was Harry’s friend and was outraged at the way their teacher tried to bully him, was cheering for the snark the other boy was showing. Another part, the one that was a Slytherin through and through, knew that this had been entirely the wrong thing to say, and a look at Snape’s face confirmed those suspicions.

“Sit down!,” Snape snapped at Granger, before continuing, towards Harry: “For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? ” he asked, looking up at the class. “Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

Everyone suddenly leapt for their quills to obey, but Draco was still staring at Snape resentfully, trying to figure out what in Merlin’s name he was missing here.

“And a point will be taken from Gryffindor house for your cheek, Potter,” Snape added, quite unpleasantly. Harry flushed, and Draco’s eyes narrowed once more. Finally, Snape’s dark eyes fell on him. “Is there anything you’d like to say, Mr Malfoy?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Draco stared at him for another moment, a thousand answers much more scathing that Harry’s little comment going through his head, before finally, he shook his head.

“Then why aren’t you taking notes?” Snape demanded, and without another word, Draco picked up his quill and started writing. And if he was pressing the tip to the parchment a little too harshly, well, no one but Harry would ever know.

As they proceeded their lesson and Draco paired up with Harry to brew their first potion, Snape continued to pick on the other Gryffindors as well, but he seemed to dislike Harry the most by far. It infuriated Draco to no end. He did not care much whether Snape snapped at Longbottom or not - after all, the boy had conducted a ridiculous accident that had, quite frankly speaking, endangered everyone in his surroundings. But when he blamed Harry for not warning the idiot boy, Draco was tempted to throw the cauldron of their unfinished potion right into their Professor’s face. Still, he grabbed Harry’s wrist when the other boy opened his mouth to argue, squeezing hard to shut him up.

  


“Cheer up,” Weasley told Harry when, an hour later, they were finally released from the dungeons. “Snape’s always taking points off Fred and George. I heard he hates all students apart from Slytherins.”

“Still!” Draco snarled, relieved at being able to voice the anger he had felt bubbling inside of him throughout the whole lesson. “Rounding up like this on Harry was so unfair! What in Merlin’s name is Harry supposed to have done to him?!”

“I don’t know,” Harry mumbled, quite miserably. “He seems to hate me.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” Weasley shrugged, but he could convince neither Draco nor Harry with that. Still, he continued, as if the subject was closed: “Harry, can I come with you to meet Hagrid?”

“Meet Hagrid?” Draco asked.

“Yes, he invited me over this morning,” Harry explained. “You wanna come, too?”

“Sure,” Draco smiled, feeling a lot happier at being included like that. It was not like he had any real desire to visit the overgrown gamekeeper who his father had described as 'savage' - then again, he had praised Snape - but any time he could spend with Harry was time spent well, in his opinion. Especially opposed to being locked up in his dormitory trying to stay out of Nott’s path.

So they made their way out to the school grounds and down to the little hut near the Forbidden Forest where Rubeus Hagrid lived. The man greeted them cheerfully, though he was struggling to rule in his monstrous boarhound that seemed keen on jumping them. The insides of Hagrid’s hut were meagre and there was barely any place to sit, so Draco kept close to Harry and tried to make himself as small as possible, nervously watching as the dog crowded Weasley and tried to lick off his face. His mother’s voice was shrieking in his head not to touch a thing, but when Hagrid offered them tea, it would have been impolite to refuse.

“Hagrid, this is Ron,” Harry introduced Weasley, gesturing to where the redhead was almost disappearing underneath the canine body. “And this is Draco.” Draco quickly plastered a smile on his face and nodded in greeting.

“Another Weasley, eh?,” Hagrid asked as he put dubious-looking cake onto plates in front of them. “I spent half me life chasin' your brothers away from the Forest.” Weasley grinned sheepishly before Hagrid’s dark eyes focused on Draco. “And yeh’re the Malfoy kid, aren’ yeh?,” he asked, frowning.

“Yes,” Draco confirmed, shifting uncomfortably next to Harry and his fingers grasping at his teacup nervously.

Hagrid just hummed, not commenting further on Draco’s parentage.

“So, tell me, how was yer first week? I want ter hear everything!”

As Harry and Ron launched into a retelling of their impressions, the dog moved on to lay his head in Harry’s lap, but thankfully stayed away from Draco. Maybe it was sensing his nerves. He poked at the rock cake on his plate but didn’t dare eat it. He warmed up towards the giant man, though, when he cursed Filch, the castle’s horrible caretaker, and his sorry excuse for a cat, so Draco tentatively started to join their conversation, throwing in a comment here and there. Like Ron, Hagrid reassured Harry that Snape didn’t have a personal grudge against him, but Draco thought he seemed shifty at Harry’s insistence that the potions teacher seemed to hate him, and he quickly changed the subject towards Weasley’s brother. Harry caught Draco’s eyes, and he knew that the other boy had noticed, too.

“By the way,” Harry said finally, his tone quiet as the other two chatted away. “Will you tell me now what Nott has done to your robes?”

Draco sighed, averting his gaze to the table. His eyes fell on a cutting of a newspaper article on Hagrid’s table, and he picked it up, in want of something to distract Harry from that line of questioning.

“‘Gringotts Break-In Latest’,” he read out loud, frowning. “Who would be stupid enough to break into Gringotts?”

“Nevermind that now!” Harry muttered, exasperated, but when Draco skimmed the article and pointed out that the break-in had happened on the day they had first met at Madam Malkin’s, Harry held in, stunned.

“Show me,” he muttered, taking the cutting and reading the article for himself. Finally, he exclaimed: “Hagrid, that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might have even happened while we were there!”

Hagrid froze, then grunted noncommittally, seeming even more nervous than before.

“More cake?” he enquired.

  


“When we went to Gringotts that day, Hagrid emptied a vault,” Harry told Draco and Weasley later, as they made their way up to the school again. “Said it was Hogwarts business, and that he couldn’t tell me what it was about. But what if _that_ was what the thief was after?”

Weasley’s eyes widened. “Merlin,” he breathed. “What do you think it was? What did it look like?”

“Small,” Harry shrugged, brows furrowed. “And wrapped up in some cloth. I didn’t really get a good look.”

“Well,” Draco shrugged. “Whatever it was, I’m sure it’s stored somewhere safe now.”

Harry looked thoughtful, but then, he looked up at him, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“You still haven’t told me what Nott did,” he pointed out.

Draco sighed, rolling his eyes. “You won’t drop it, will you?” he grumbled.

“No,” Harry said simply, an air of finality in his tone. Draco’s shoulder slumped, resigned.

“He tore them to pieces,” Draco muttered. “Removed the Slytherin crest and everything.”

“What?!” Harry called, coming to a sudden hold and grabbing Draco’s wrist. “But why didn’t you tell Snape this morning?!”

“Because that would just make things worse,” Draco explained defensively. “Next time, they’ll feed my trunk to the Giant Squid or-”

“You can’t let them get away with it!” Harry protested.

“You don’t know what it’s like down there in the Slytherin quarters, Harry!” Draco groaned. “Everyone hates me as it is, and if I start to fight them, they will _all_ turn against me, not only Nott! It’s better to keep my head down and not draw any attention to myself!”

“Why do they hate you?” Harry asked, bewildered.

Draco looked at his shoes, unable to answer. It was Weasley, though, who spoke.

“You heard what Nott said,” he grumbled bitterly. “He associates with _blood traitors_ , like my family, or I guess yours, Harry.”

“I didn’t call you that!,” Draco said sharply.

“But your father does,” Weasley spat. “Dad talked about him at home, you know, and how he thinks our family isn’t worth a Knut because we don’t have as much money, and because we don’t think Muggles are scum.”

“Well, Father is wrong!” Draco exclaimed defiantly. A part of him couldn’t believe that he was talking this disrespectfully about his parents, but he pressed it down until it shut up. “I think differently! Obviously,” he muttered. “Or I wouldn’t be the joke of every Slytherin student at this school.”

Weasley observed him suspiciously, as if any moment, Draco would crack and start insulting him and his family the way Weasley apparently expected him to.

“I believe Draco,” Harry vowed, at last, drawing both their attention to him. “My aunt and uncle are absolutely horrible,” Harry shrugged. “And I don’t think I’m anything like them. So why does Draco have to be like his father?” he turned to Draco, smiling tentatively. “I don’t care if your father is a prat, or if-” he gulped, throwing a short look at Weasley before meeting his eyes again, determination shining in those green orbs. “-or if he was a follower of Voldemort. I know you’re different, and you’re my friend.”

Draco held his breath, his throat tightening up in emotion. What he ended up saying, though, quite irrationally, was: “You’re saying his name.”

“He tends to do that,” Weasley made a face.

There was an uncomfortable silence between them, before Draco whispered, at last: “Thank you, Harry.”

“There’s no need to thank me,” Harry huffed, looking uncomfortable. “Just, if Nott is giving you a hard time again, tell me. You’re not alone.”

Draco smiled, and for the first time since he had received it, he felt like thanking the Draco of the future for his letter.

  


The matter of the torn robes solved itself, quite surprisingly. When Draco came back to his dormitory that night, they lay folded on his bed, perfectly repaired and washed. It was then that Draco remembered that Hogwarts had house elves working in the background, too.

The matter of Nott was not to be solved that easily, though, but now that Harry was his friend, Draco did not mind as much. He spent much more time out of the Slytherin quarters with him and a rather reluctant Weasley, hanging back in the Great Hall after dinner and playing Wizard’s Chess or Exploding Snap, or doing homework together in the library. When Draco did have to return, he went straight to his bed and drew the curtains, reading or studying. And whenever Nott tried to bully him, he held his head high and threw a well-phrased insult back at him. The other seemed furious at Draco’s new-found confidence, but Draco refused to feel threatened. He was not going to be the laughing stock of his house any longer.

“Did you see the notice?,” Draco asked cheerfully, pushing some of the sweets his mother had sent him this morning over towards the other two as they lay spread out on the grass, brooding over their Charms homework and enjoying the golden September day. “Flying Lessons start on Thursday, and Slytherins and Gryffindors will be grouped together!”

Weasley grunted at that, obviously less than pleased at the prospect, but Harry smiled at Draco, which he took as an invitation to babble on.

“I can’t wait to finally be allowed up in the air again! ” he grinned, rolling onto his back and resting his head on his book to look up at the sky. “Though it’s a shame I couldn’t bring my own broom! I bet the school brooms are rubbish.”

“I thought you crashed yours when almost colliding with that flying Muggle windmill,” Weasley commented innocently.

“Helicopter,” Harry corrected, and there was amusement in his eyes as he turned the pages of his book.

Draco willed himself not to blush. He might have slightly exaggerated a story or two about his prior adventures on the broom, but Harry had been so eager to listen and he hadn’t been able to help himself. Plus, Weasley had gone on and on about that one time he had almost collided with a hang glider when using his brother’s broom, and Draco had just _had_ to surpass that story.

“I got a new one after that,” Draco lied off-handedly, making Weasley roll his eyes. “I will have to use my holidays to practice for Quidditch tryouts in second year, after all.” He quickly shut up though when he saw Harry’s clouded look at the mention of the Wizarding sport he didn’t understand. Both Draco and Weasley had spent a lot of time trying to introduce Harry to the rules and the teams, but Draco could tell that while Harry was curious, he felt a little too much on the outside during these conversations. So Draco had started to avoid them, for the most part.

“I just hope I’m not going to make a fool of myself in front of Nott,” Harry grumbled.

“You will not,” Draco protested, turning his head to frown at him. “I saw Nott on a broom before. Trolls have more grace than he does. You will be flying circles around him once you get the hang of it, I’m sure.”

Harry looking unconvinced, but he did not voice his doubts, instead muttering: “I just wished I could get the better of him at _something_. He’s the biggest git I ever met, and that’s saying something, considering I used to live with Dudley. I hate how he treats everyone as if they are beneath him, and I especially hate how he treats you!”

Draco felt warm at the protectiveness in Harry’s words. He highly objected to the idea that he could not watch out for himself, but the affection for Draco hidden behind Harry’s hate for Nott made Draco feel more treasured than he had hoped to be after only a week of school. He had quickly learned that Harry had a strong sense of justice and would stand up for others in need, but Draco told himself that his hate for Nott was mainly down to the fact that he bullied Draco, and that he thought Draco was someone special. Someone worth protecting.

“Who cares about Nott,” was what Draco ended up saying, emphasising his words with a casual shrug. “Let him play the big bully on the playground if he wants to. It’s not like he’s got anything else in his life. If _my_ only friends were Crabbe and Goyle, I’d be frustrated, too.”

Harry laughed at that, and even Weasley cracked a smile.

When Thursday rolled around, Draco was practically buzzing with energy. The day was sunny and the conditions for flying were perfect, and as they waited for the Gryffindors and the teacher to arrive at the lawn out on the grounds, Draco was not even bothered by Nott’s obnoxious boasting and the condescending comments directed towards him.

The Gryffindors all arrived in a group, and Draco quickly found Harry alongside Weasley and Longbottom, sending him a broad smile. Harry grinned back and pointedly walked over to where Draco was standing quite apart from the other Slytherins, claiming the broom next to him. Weasley and Longbottom followed rather reluctantly, the latter glancing nervously over at Nott - Draco had heard that he, too, had been a repeated victim of Nott’s abusive behaviour.

When their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived, she immediately ordered them towards their brooms.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom and say ‘Up!’,” she commanded briskly.

There was a chorus of “Up!”, and Draco smiled in satisfaction when his broom jumped up into his hand obediently. So did Harry’s, he noted. Harry looked pretty amazed at his instant success and returned the grin Draco sent him.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to correctly mount their brooms, but as Draco, unlike most other students in this class, was anything but a newbie to the practice of flying, he only paid her explanation half-hearted attention. Instead, he let his eyes wander among the group, snickering to himself when Nott, Crabbe and Goyle all had to be prodded into the right stance by Madam Hooch.

“Told you they had no talent for flying,” he hissed at Harry, who smiled as he concentrated on adjusting his own posture. Draco lazily mounted his broom and waited for the teacher to come along.

“Left hand underneath the right one, Mr Malfoy!”

The teacher’s voice made him jump, and he flushed as he found her yellow eyes fixed on him. He quickly adjusted his hands, cursing under his breath.

“Thumbs up!” she ordered. “Up, I said - how will you steer the broom successfully if you hold on like this?! Yes, that’s it.”

Draco felt utterly humiliated as she finally turned away from him and moved on towards Harry, and Weasley’s smirk, easily noticeable from where he stood at Harry’s other side, did nothing to quench his embarrassment.

“Now,” Madam Hooch finally called. “When I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground hard. Keep your broom steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forwards slightly.” Draco grabbed his broom a little tighter, keen to prove how good of a flyer he really was. “On my whistle! Three - two -”

But before Madam Hooch could blow her whistle, Longbottom caused a commotion by rising from the ground too early and finding himself unable to dive back to the ground even with Madam Hooch shouting directions up at him. In the end, he slipped off the broom and fell from about twenty feet height, breaking his wrist. Madam Hooch had to accompany him to the hospital wing, leaving the class under firm instructions to keep their feet on the ground.

Predictably, the Slytherins started to snicker and poke fun at Longbottom’s stunt the moment she was out of hearing distance.

“What an oaf!” Pansy Parkinson giggled as Daphne Greengrass wiped her tears of laughter from her cheeks. “Did you see his face?!”

“Shut up, Parkinson!” a dark-skinned Gryffindor girl snapped at her, making the pug-nosed girl coo: “Oooh, sticking up for Longbottom? Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati!”

Draco rolled his eyes, turning towards Harry to comment on how Pansy Parkinson had no right to call anyone a crybaby after her birthday party last year - but Nott’s booming voice interrupted him when he held a little glass ball into the air, showing it off to everyone.

“Look what Longbottom lost,” he snickered, and only then did Draco recognise it as a Remembrall.

“Give that here, Nott,” Harry suddenly said from next to him, in a deadly calm voice.

Nott laughed, turning to face Harry, his eyes glinting.

“Potter,” he said gleefully. “The saviour of all losers. Isn’t protecting Malfoy enough of a pet project? Do you still have time to take care of Longbottom, too?”

Draco flushed angrily, and before Harry could say anything further, Draco stepped forward and tried to snatch the Remembrall out of Nott’s hand. Nott evaded him, laughing in delight.

“I guess it’s a club!” he called. “Malfoy, Longbottom and Weasley, all charges of the famous Harry Potter! Must be a merry little group where you all sit star-eyed and worship him.”

Draco reached for the Remembrall again, furious, but Nott, in a sudden burst of inspiration, flung it through the air and towards the walls of the castle.

Everything after that happened very fast. He did not see Harry mount his broom, but he could hear Granger screech something at him and then, Harry was up in the air, flying after the Remembrall with a speed and finesse that made Draco stare with an open mouth. Before he knew it, Harry had caught the little ball, only seconds before it would have crashed against the stone wall.

The Gryffindors (apart from Granger, who looked rather alarmed) were cheering and clapping, but Draco could only stare as Harry grinned down at them, leaning forward to land back among them. But… This was Harry’s first time on a broom! How come he was so good at it?! Draco had been flying for years, and he was pretty sure he could not have caught that ball!

A loud call of “Harry Potter!” made silence fall upon them, and the grin slipped from Harry’s face, replaced instead with an expression of horror that reflected how Draco felt. Professor McGonagall was marching towards them, a look of shock and incredulity on her face.

“Never… In all my time at Hogwarts-” she gasped, and Draco raked his brain for something to say. “How dare you! Might have broken your neck!” Several Gryffindors spoke up in Harry’s defence, and Draco opened his mouth too, pointing at Nott, but McGonagall shushed them all and demanded Harry to follow her.

Harry trotted after McGonagall in utter doom, and Draco furiously turned back towards Nott, who was grinning in triumph.

“You complete arse!” Draco hissed, reaching out to grasp Nott’s robe and shake him. “If Harry’s going to get expelled I’m going to-”

But that’s how far he came before Crabbe and Goyle had grabbed him and pulled him away violently, throwing him back until he had painfully landed on his butt. Weasley came, quite surprisingly, to his violent defence, and soon, chaos had fallen upon their group that was only to be silenced by Madam Hooch’s return. Several students got points taken from both houses, including Draco, Weasley, Nott, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson and that Gryffindor girl she’d been quarrelling with earlier. She then sent them off early, threatening that if they didn’t behave next week, both their houses would be exempted from Flying Lessons in the future.

They all returned to the castle in a lousy mood, and Draco walked next to Weasley in tense silence.

“Do you think Harry’s okay?” Draco asked finally.

“If not, I’m going to punch Nott in the face,” Weasley groaned. “And I don’t even care if I’ll be expelled alongside him for it. That bastard deserves it.”

They need not have worried, though. Harry turned up at dinner like nothing had happened, and when Draco left the Great Hall after, he was pulled aside and filled in on what had happened in a whispered conversation.

“You were made Seeker for Gryffindor?!” Draco gasped, a little too loudly, and Harry put a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.

“You can’t tell anyone! ” Harry demanded. “Wood wants it to be a secret! But yes, I start training next week.”

“But you’re in first year! ” Draco spoke against Harry’s hand, his voice muffled. “First years can’t play on their house teams!”

“There’s no rule against it,” Harry shrugged, finally lowering his hand. “But it seems I’m the youngest house player in a century or something.”

Draco gaped at him, relief over Harry’s lack of punishment mingling with incredulity and jealousy.

“You know,” Draco muttered. “If you weren’t my best friend, I’d hate your guts for this.”

Harry grinned sheepishly.


	4. Chapter Three: About Friendship and Enmity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your ongoing support and all your lovely comments! They cheer me up so much through the frustration that is my daily workload for university and give me the motivation I need to push on, and find some time to return to Draco & Harry's adventures in my spare minutes. Love you all!
> 
> Now, onto the new chapter, including Hermione and a Halloween that is a couple of weeks late, but I hope you still enjoy it :) Let me know what you think!

Due to Harry’s lack of punishment following the events of their first flying lesson, Nott became even more vicious than before. Not only did he bully his victims more and more publicly, but he also widened his field of victims. Among it were now, apart from Draco and Longbottom, Harry and Weasley, and depending on his mood, every Gryffindor student he came across.

Draco, though, was still his favourite punch ball. In the following week, Draco found all his school books drenched by a sticky green fluid that smelled strongly of rotten eggs, his Astronomy essay handed over to Millicent Bulstrode’s cat to sharpen her claws with, and himself pushed down a set of stairs high enough that he ended up in the hospital wing overnight. Thankfully, McGonagall happened to walk in on that last one, and though he had been unconscious, he had heard from Harry afterwards that she had yelled at Nott, Crabbe and Goyle for ten minutes straight and given them detention for the rest of the month.

Harry, needless to mention, was livid at Nott’s recent behaviour. He got into fights with him almost once a day, and whenever someone only uttered his name, Harry’s green eyes would narrow and his fists clench.

It all seemed to have escalated, though, on the night Draco had been hospitalised. Madam Pomfrey let him out of her care in time for breakfast, and when he hurried down the corridors towards the Great Hall, he almost collided with Harry. The other boy was alone, for once, without his usual red-headed shadow, and he was carrying a couple of sandwiches in his arms.

“I was looking for you,” Harry told him, his eyes bright as he pushed the food at him. “I have to talk to you. Alone.”

Draco was intrigued, but he gratefully accepted the offering and followed Harry out onto the grounds for a walk. Harry did not speak until they were safely out of everyone’s earshot.

“So, last night,” Harry began. “Nott challenged me to a duel.”

Draco almost choked on his bite of bread. “What? ” he asked, stunned.

“I called him out because of his stunt with the stairs, and then he suddenly started babbling about Wizarding Duels and asked me to meet him in the Trophy Room at midnight. I didn’t really understand most of what he was saying, to be honest. Ron stepped in to handle the talking.”

“How kind of him,” Draco commented, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You didn’t go, did you? It was obviously a trap.” When Harry looked embarrassed, Draco’s eyes widened. “You didn’t! Harry, what the -”

“Ron had accepted before I even knew what was going on! ” Harry said defensively. “And then I couldn’t back out!”

“Why, because _Weasley_ said so?” Draco challenged. “Please tell me you didn’t get caught, like Nott so obviously intended you to?”

“We almost did,” Harry muttered, his voice small. “But we escaped.”

“Brilliant,” Draco rolled his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about this when you came to see me in the hospital wing last night? I would have told you not to go!”

Harry bit his lip. “Ron said-”

“Oh, right,” Draco spat, his temper flaring up immediately. “Because _Weasley_ is to be more trusted in knowing how Nott’s mind works than I am.”

“That’s not what I was saying! ” Harry protested. “Why are you getting so worked up over this?!”

“Because, Harry,” Draco snapped. “You should have come to _me_ first! It’s _always_ Weasley, no matter whether he is even qualified to give you advice on that particular matter or not! I always hear about everything last, and I’m sick of it!”

“I didn’t-” Harry began, gulping and frowning at him. “That’s not-”

“You know it is!” Draco insisted. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m not one of your beloved housemates or because Weasley feeds you with stories about my father-”

“I don’t care about any of that! ” Harry called. “You know that!”

“Then why am I always second best?!” Draco demanded, an edge to his voice.

Honestly, he didn’t know why he was making a scene. Harry had been a good friend to him, and deep down, he knew that the boy had just wanted to avenge him… But the jealousy towards Weasley had been there from the first day of school, bubbling inside of him like lava, and now, it all just spilt over.

“You could have gotten in serious trouble last night,” Draco pointed out. “You could have been expelled, and it would have all been Weasley’s fault for pushing you into it! But sure, keep confiding into him instead of me, why don’t you!”

And with that, Draco stormed off, leaving a shell-shocked Harry behind.

  


Draco hid in the owlery for the rest of the day. He couldn't explain why he had chosen this particular place to sulk - it was dirty and the windy, but Aquila let him pet his feathers and sat close to him, and somehow, that made him feel a little calmer.

After a while, Harry’s snowy owl flew over to join them, too. Maybe she recognised him as a friend of Harry’s. Her big amber eyes were watching him curiously, as if she knew it was her owner that had made him upset.

“I didn’t want to fight with him,” Draco whispered, sounding as miserable as he felt. “I just _hate_ feeling so inconsequential next to Weasley.” Hedwig hooted softly, as if acknowledging his words. “What’s so great about that freckled git?” Draco muttered. “What does he have that I don’t?”

Hedwig just tipped her head to the side. Aquila hooted from next to him, fluttering until he landed on his shoulder, gently nipping at his hair.

It was at that moment that Harry burst through the door. He was out of breath and looked around frantically until he spotted Draco sitting on a bench, surrounded by their owls. Hedwig let out a high pitched screech and flew over to him. Harry held out his hand for her to land on, petting her head absentmindedly. He was staring at Draco, though.

“Fred and George told me they’d seen you up here,” he answered the unvoiced question hanging between them. “I’ve been looking for you all day.”

“Is that so?” Draco drawled, looking at Hedwig instead of Harry.

Draco wasn’t good at this. Apologies. Rejection. Not getting exactly what he wanted. It was Harry, though, who took over for him, much to his surprise.

“I’m sorry, Draco!” he said, quite urgently. “I didn’t mean to upset you, or make you think that I trust you less than Ron. I was angry at Nott, and you were still pretty out of it at the hospital last night, and I just… I guess I didn’t want to worry you.” There was a slight intake of breath, before he muttered: “I’m really sorry.”

Draco met Harry’s eyes then, and saw fear in those startling green orbs. It was then that Draco remembered that Harry had never had real friends until Hogwarts, either; that he was as new to all of this as Draco was, and, more importantly, that he was probably just as scared of all of it disappearing again.

“I hate when you tell Weasley things before you tell me,” Draco pointed out, because he was a Malfoy and it was in his nature to always want to have the last word. “I know it can’t be helped sometimes. We don’t share a common room, and are separated for most of our classes. But you’re my only friend, and I don’t want to be second best to you.”

“You aren’t! ” Harry shook his head. “You are just as important to me as Ron is! And I promise I’ll tell you everything immediately from now on!”

Draco let go of a breath he had not known he was holding, warmth spreading through him at those words. Finally, he nodded.

“Okay,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, too. For making a scene.”

Harry smiled tentatively, and he crossed the distance between them, sitting next to Draco on the bench. He ran his fingers through Hedwig’s feathers affectionately, and she closed her eyes, looking content.

“Are we okay, then?” Harry asked, at last, and when Draco nodded, he added: “Can I now tell you what I really wanted to tell you this morning?”

Draco smiled, and Aquila hooted softly from his place on Draco’s shoulder.

“Sure,” he agreed.

Harry then dived into the story about how the previous night, he and Weasley had stumbled over Longbottom and Granger, and how they had followed them and how, when they had figured out that they had been tricked, they had accidentally fled into the forbidden third-floor-corridor trying to escape Filch, and what they had found there.

“A three-headed dog?!” Draco hissed, whirling around to look at Harry so abruptly that Aquila complained with a loud screech and flew off towards the other end of the oval tower, glowering at Draco reproachfully from the shadows. Hedwig joined him, leaving Harry and Draco alone on the bench. “What the bloody hell would Dumbledore keep such a thing in a _school_ for?!”

“We think it’s guarding whatever Hagrid got out of Gringotts the day of the break-in,” Harry muttered.

“Wow,” Draco shuddered. “It must be really valuable then. Though I don’t get why they think Hogwarts is safer than Gringotts. They have tons of stuff to guard it there. Why would a vicious dog with too many heads and a bunch of kids keep whoever is after it out when they took their chances with dragons and who knows what else?”

“I don’t know,” Harry frowned, as if he hadn’t thought about it that way. “Hagrid seems to reckon here’s safer. Maybe it’s because of Dumbledore?" Harry shrugged, then continued: “I really want to know what it is the dog is guarding, though.”

“Probably some kind of invaluable magical object,” Draco mused. “Or something really dark. I heard stories about old artefacts that, if they ended up in the wrong hands…”

He dived into a retelling of gruesome tales he had heard from his father, and the way Harry listened so intently and speculated with him until the sun was setting and they had to go back to the castle cheered Draco up immensely. He wished it could always be like this, he thought to himself - just him and Harry, with the other boy’s attention completely on him, and no Weasley around to ruin the day.

  


Until Halloween, a strange new normality formed in Draco’s life: Whenever it was not lesson or meal time, he would stick to Harry, who would sometimes have Weasley in his tow, but would also meet him on his own increasingly often. It seemed to Draco like Weasley had grudgingly accepted that Harry’s friendship to Draco was a thing now and that he wasn’t going anywhere, so he had decided to give them some space. This suited Draco quite well - the more time he got to spend alone with Harry, the easier it was for him to accept that Weasley was the one at his side through most other times of the day.

Nott was still doing his best to abuse Draco, verbally and, if he could get away with it, in every other imaginable way, but after Draco’s injury, the teachers, especially Professor McGonagall, had started keeping a closer eye on them, so they had to be more careful.

Hagrid, on his part, had gotten wind of the way his housemates treated Draco, and had gifted him a chest that would bite everyone but him who tried to reach inside, and which had successfully kept his possessions out of Nott’s grabby hands ever since. To say that the thoughtful gift had surprised Draco would be an understatement; he had warmed up to the giant gamekeeper so much he would accompany Harry to visit him almost at weekly intervals.

As Halloween approached, the castle was decorated spectacularly, and despite the fact that he was seated among his fellow Slytherins, Draco was quite enjoying the feast that evening. Life bats were fluttering through the Great Hall, and giant pumpkins were festively hollowed and had had scary faces carved, illuminating the great hall with flickering candlelight.

The feast was cut short, though, when suddenly Professor Quirrell, their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, burst into the Great Hall gasping about a troll in the dungeons. In an instant, every student was on their feet, and the panicked crowd was only to be reigned in by Dumbledore himself, who ordered the Prefects to take their houses back to their common rooms. Which technically wasn't a half-bad idea, Draco thought, if you forgot the fact that the Slytherin common room was located _in_ the dungeons. Several of his housemates seemed to have come to the same conclusion, and there were vehement protests from various sides as their Prefects tried to steer them out in the entrance hall and down the stairs.

It was throughout that chaos that Draco spotted Harry and Weasley separating from their group of Gryffindors and running down another corridor, determined and quite unaccompanied. Draco had only a moment to blanch - stupid, reckless, _impossible Gryffindors_ \- before he was running after them, fully intending to pull them back by their robes if he had to.

“Harry!” Draco called, and they looked over their shoulders as Draco approached. “What in Merlin’s name are you-”

“Hermione!” Harry called, as if that should mean anything to Draco, but just as he had opened his mouth to snap back at the other boy, he added: “She’s in the bathroom, and she doesn’t know-”

“Then why didn’t you tell a teacher?” Draco demanded. “Why did you have to-”

“Oh, shut up, Malfoy!” Weasley snapped. “You’re wasting all our breath!”

And with that, they turned back around and picked up speed, and Draco could do nothing but follow after them.

“This is stupid!” Draco announced, because he could complain _and_ run at the same time, thank you very much. “Why wasn’t she at the feast to begin with?! And why do you have to be her babysitter?! If we come across that troll, I swear to Salazar-”

But Harry and Weasley had stopped in their tracks, and Harry had clasped a hand over Draco’s mouth to shut him up. They slipped behind a large stone gryffin, and finally, Draco saw the reason for their hold up: Snape was crossing the corridors ahead of them in far steps, heading up a couple of stairs. For a moment, Draco considered fighting Harry off and calling out to him for help, but then he figured that they’d be in enormous trouble if Snape caught them out alone like this against the Headmaster’s orders.

“He’s heading for the third floor!” Harry hissed. “What’s he doing? Why isn’t he down in the dungeons with the other teachers?”

“Search me,” Weasley muttered, and Draco finally succeeded in pushing Harry’s hand from his face. He opened his mouth to say something scathing, before holding in, frowning and wrinkling his nose.

“What’s that smell?” he enquired, causing Harry and Weasley to both sniff and make a face in turn. Then, they heard heavy, shuffling footsteps from a corridor towards their left, and when they turned around the corner to look, they spotted the giant monster that was inevitably going to hunt his nightmares from now on scuffling along in the dark.

“Oh no,” Draco breathed. “I don’t like this. Let’s go back, please.”

“Shut up!” Weasley hissed, and Harry clasped his hand back over Draco’s mouth, so he could only stare in horror as the thing moved along the corridor and disappeared into an open door.

“The key’s in the lock! ” Harry muttered. “We could lock it in!”

“Good idea!” Ron said, and they had just begun to move towards the door when Draco grasped Harry’s arm, holding him back.

“Wait!” Draco hissed. “Didn’t you say Granger was in the bathroom?! This _is_ the girl’s bathroom, you morons!”

The other two just stared at him for a moment, stunned, and then, a high-pitched scream broke through the silence.

“Hermione!” Harry and Weasley called, and started running. Draco, cursing his luck and his life choices, followed reluctantly.

  


In hindsight, Draco did not remember how they had survived the whole thing. There was a lot of screaming and the troll smashing half the bathroom with his club, and at one point, Harry had hung in the air. Somehow, though, Weasley had managed to knock the thing out with its own weapon due to some feebly cast spell, and Draco had just started to feel his legs again when the teachers had burst into the room.

Draco had never been so sure of his own doom. He had already been wondering what his father would do to him if he got expelled within his first term and if he’d be allowed to go to another school abroad. Maybe Beauxbatons. He spoke French, after all. Or Durmstrang. His father had considered the school for him at some point, but he would have to learn German or Russian, and Draco did not fancy the declination of those two languages. Or maybe Ilvermorny, though really, it sounded like a second-class Hogwarts. Though if he was expelled here, he might as well. And they spoke English, though sometimes it didn’t sound like it.

Quite surprisingly, though, his inner monologue had been interrupted by Hermione Granger, official Know-It-All and Goody-Two-Shoes of their year and most annoying existence Draco had ever encountered (and that included some mad paintings in the West Wing of Malfoy Manor), who saved them from punishment by taking the blame onto herself.

“I went looking for the troll because I - I thought I could deal with it on my own, you know, because I read all about them,” she lied, making Draco, Harry and Weasley gape at her like she had just turned into a step-dancing Filch. “If they hadn’t found me, I’d be dead now!”

It was the most bizarre thing Draco had ever experienced - the unconscious troll lying between them, drooling over the floor, as Granger told a straight-out lie to the teachers in an attempt to save their skin. Though, Draco figured, they had come to save hers in the first place. It was probably good manners to return the favour, in a world that was not ruled by Slytherins. Maybe he would have to take notes.

In the end, Draco, Harry and Weasley each won points for their houses and were lectured about their sheer luck by Professor McGonagall (as if Draco needed to be reminded of how high the possibility of his death had been), and then, they were released, quite unharmed and still very much enrolled at this school.

The strangest outcome of it all, though, was that from that point on, Granger joined their unlikely group whenever they hung out together, and by some weird agreement that probably had happened within the Gryffindor common room while he hadn’t been around, they all became _friends_. Draco was not sure what exactly he felt about the fact that he had to count Weasley and Granger among his friends now, but he figured, as long as Harry was there, he could deal with it. 


	5. Chapter Four: Of Meddling Gryffindors And A Mother’s Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my dear readers! Thank you as always for your lovely comments! I hope you will enjoy this chapter as much as the others - befitting the pre-Christmas season, it includes (not-so-festive) Christmas holidays, Lucius and Narcissa. I wish you all a fabulous December :)

As November passed and snow started falling onto the Hogwarts grounds, Draco learned two things. The first was that Hermione Granger, though he had always thought her an annoying Know-It-All, was a very useful friend to have. It was not that Draco needed help with his studies, but she was usually a much more competent conversation partner than Harry or especially Weasley, and when they did their homework together, he picked up interesting details he would not have thought of himself. Not only did this win Hermione Draco’s respect, but she also turned out much more relaxed and less annoying now that she had actual friends to hang out with. It made Draco wonder how he’d have behaved if he’d been all alone in the school, without Harry to rely on. He might have been just as much of a nuisance, he figured, which made him decide to overlook Hermione’s behavior for the earlier part of the term altogether.

The second thing he learned was that Gryffindors, and _especially_ Harry, were a nosy bunch of tossers. Growing up in a Slytherin environment, Draco had quickly learned to not stick his nose into things that were none of his business, unless he wanted it burned - or at least do it smartly if there was no choice but to. Harry, though, seemed to have missed that part of his education entirely. It had been fun at first, discussing what the three-headed dog was guarding and who it needed guarding against, but when Snape had started limping after his trip to the third-floor corridor on Halloween and Harry had (quite accidentally, he ensured Draco) overheard Snape admitting that the injury had been caused by the monster, and much worse, had let himself be caught in the act of listening in, Draco began to worry about his obsession. It did not help in the slightest that, when Harry’s first Quidditch match finally rolled around, _someone_ hexed his broom to throw him off. Draco had been too shell-shocked and scared as he had watched from the Slytherin stands, unable even to breathe until the spell was broken, but Hermione had informed them later on that she had seen Snape cast, and Draco couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised about that turn of events.

“I’m telling you, Hagrid, it was Snape!” Hermione insisted as they had gathered in the gamekeeper’s hut after the match for a cup of tea. “I can recognise an incantation if I see it! He-”

“Rubbish!” Hagrid interrupted him. “Why would he do something like tha'?”

Harry exchanged a meaningful look with Hermione and Weasley, and Draco prayed inwardly for the other boy to keep his mouth shut. No such luck.

“I found out something about him,” Harry explained. “He tried to get past that three-headed-dog at Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it’s guarding.”

Draco closed his eyes and waited for the lecture on not accusing teachers of such crimes, but it did not come. Instead, he heard a cup crash to the ground as Hagrid gasped: “How do yeh know about Fluffy?!”

“ _Fluffy_?!” Draco repeated incredulously, opening his eyes again. His reaction was mirrored by the others.

“Yeah, he’s mine!,” Hagrid told them. “I bought him off a geek chappie I met in the pub last year! I leant him to Dumbledore ter guard the-”

He cut himself off at that point, becoming aware of his almost-slip up. The other three kept prodding at him, arguing with him that Snape could not be trusted. Draco did all he could not to roll his eyes at them.

“Now, really,” he cut into their argument, choosing his words well. “Stop harassing Hagrid like that! The Headmaster has put his trust in him, and he won’t break it for us.”

Weasley stared at him with an open mouth and Harry frowned in confusion, but Hagrid beamed at Draco.

“Yeh’re a good boy, Draco!” he boomed. “Tha's righ'! What the dog is hidin’ is between Dumbledore an’ Nicholas Flamel! It’s none of yer business.”

“I agree,” Draco said quickly, before the others could even gasp. “I’ve read about Nicholas Flamel, and he’s an important Alchemist. For all we know, Fluffy could be hiding the Philosopher’s Stone! What good would such information do First Year’s like us?”

“See!” Hagrid nodded, throwing a placating look towards the other three. “Tha’s what I was sayin’! I mean, -” Then he held in, his dark eyes widening at Draco, who smiled innocently over his cup of tea. “Crickey,” he muttered. “I should never have said anythin’.”

And that was why, though his Gryffindor friends were bigger meddlers than Draco would ever be, they would never be as good at it as a Slytherin.

  


“What _is_ the Philosopher’s Stone?” Harry asked Draco eagerly as they made their way back up to the castle, having been released by a worried and guilty Hagrid under vows to not tell anyone about what they had just heard. “And how do you know about it?”

“I _read_ ,” Draco said smugly, noting how Weasley rolled his eyes and Hermione looked slightly abashed, as if realizing she had to do more reading if there were things Draco knew and she didn’t. “I’ve always liked Alchemy, so I’ve read a lot about it. The Philosopher’s Stone is a legendary substance that can turn metal to gold, and that is used to create the Elixir of Life, which can make you immortal. Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of it, so it wasn’t hard to guess what that dog is hiding once he’d name-dropped him,” Draco finished off-handedly.

“The Elixir of Life!” Hermione whispered. “That means Snape is after immortality?”

“Either that, or after gold,” Draco shrugged, frowning. “Who knows? If he’s really old pals with Father…” He did not finish the sentence, but they all knew what he had meant to say - the possibility that Snape was no stranger to the Dark Arts was high if he frequented in the same circles as the Malfoy family.

“Percy said Snape has always been after the Defence Against The Dark Arts job,” Harry noted. “Maybe that’s why Dumbledore doesn’t trust him enough to give it to him?”

“Well, maybe he should not trust him enough to let him teach at all,” Weasley noted drily. “Not to mention let him live in the same building where he happens to hide something so bloody important.”

Draco quite agreed with Weasley, but he wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying it out loud.

  


Thankfully, as November turned into December and the castle was showered in Christmas decoration, Snape refrained from throwing Harry off brooms or making himself look more suspicious than he already was, so Draco could mostly focus on his studies and simply having fun with his friends instead of babysitting the trouble-seeking Gryffindors. When lists were hung up in their common rooms for people staying at Hogwarts over the holidays to sign in, though, Draco started to get nervous. The source of his nerves did not lie with the fact that Harry was staying with Weasley as company - jealous as he might tend to get of the redhead, he did not wish for Harry to spend Christmas completely alone - but the prospect of actually facing his parents after the turn his way of thinking had taken in the last couple of months was undoubtedly a cause of worry.

Draco had been carefully raised into obedience by his father, and if not for his letter from the future and his consequent friendship with Harry and now even Hermione, he would have never dared to question him. He had always known that the consequences wouldn’t be pretty.

But now, he was friends with the very same boy that had been the downfall of the evil overlord his father had worshipped, a Muggle-born girl and the youngest son of the most prominent blood traitor family that had ever made it into his father’s books, and Draco was quite sure that would not go over well.

“You could stay over Christmas, too,” Harry suggested, when Draco voiced his worries to him a few nights before the holidays, while Weasley was exasperatedly trying to teach Hermione to play proper chess a few seats further down the Gryffindor table after dinner.

“My parents would never allow it,” Draco grimaced. “Mother will insist on having me home.”

“I see,” Harry sighed. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think? Your mother doesn’t seem all that horrible.” Draco had to smile at that. The weekly packages of sweets she was sending him via Aquila were infamous between him and Weasley.

“Mother is very affectionate,” Draco conceded, his stomach churning at the idea of disappointing her. “Don’t expect that to continue once she realises I’m friends with Muggleborns and Blood Traitors, though.”

“She’s your mother, though,” Harry insisted, frowning. “I’m sure she won’t stop loving you over the friends you made!”

Draco stayed silent, instead idly playing with the fir sprigs that decorated the house tables. Draco had quickly realised that, seeing as Harry had never really got to know his parents, the boy tended to idealise parent-child-relationships. And Draco was acutely aware of how insensitive it would be to argue with him; after all, he should be thankful that his parents were alive and able to show such interest in him. He knew that, to Harry, this fact alone seemed something like a dream.

Then again, Harry’s parents hadn’t been bigoted pureblood elitists that had sided with the murderer who had tried to kill his best friend.

As he sat in the Hogwarts Express a couple of days later, he was a nervous wreck. Hermione did her best to try and distract him, but nothing held his attention for more than a couple of minutes, and the closer they got to London, the more he had to concentrate on keeping his breakfast in.

“Maybe they haven’t heard anything about who your friends are?” Hermione pointed out in a valid attempt at being helpful. “There’s really no need to tell them, is there?”

“You don’t know how families like mine work,” Draco sighed. “It’s a network based on Pureblood Ideals. They all talk. ‘Did you hear my daughter got top marks in Potions?’, ‘Did you hear my son made the Quidditch Team?’, ‘So, I heard _your_ son befriended Muggle-borns and Blood Traitors. You must be so proud.’”

“Why do they care so much?” Hermione sighed in frustration. “I mean, as long as you’re happy…”

“Because it’s what they believe in,” Draco muttered. “And my grandparents believed it before them, and my great-grandparents before them. It’s tradition, and my folks don't like change.”

“It’s a racist tradition, though,” Hermione grumbled.

“It is,” Draco agreed. “But what can I do? Is there nothing comparable in the Muggle world?”

“There is,” Hermione conceded, resigned. “Only they base it on the colour of skin. The darker the skin, the bigger is the prejudice to certain people.”

“Well, imagine my parents are this kind of people, and you three have the darkest skin colour imaginable,” Draco said moodily.

“That comparison doesn’t really endear your family to me,” Hermione noted.

“Oh, believe me,” Draco chuckled darkly. “That wasn’t my intention.”

As they finally arrived at King’s Cross and left the train, Draco quickly spotted his parents among a vast group of people: The Crabbes, the Goyles, and the Notts, as far as Draco could tell. His heart fell when he saw Nott already among them, talking fast and laughing derisively in a way that Draco could hear even from where he stood. His father was listening intently, face darkening with every word.

His mother was the first to spot Draco. Their eyes met, and she just looked at him, her lips tightening to a hard line. Her expression was hard to read, and before Draco had time to try, his father followed her gaze, and there was no mistaking his expression for silent fury.

“I’ll see you in the new year,” Draco sighed, flashing a look at Hermione, who was biting her lip and was wearing a troubled frown. “That is, if I survive that long.”

Hermione seemed as if she wanted to say something encouraging, but with a glance towards Draco’s father, she shut her mouth again. Instead, she said softly: “Have a nice Christmas.”

Draco wanted to laugh, but his face wouldn’t comply. So he just waved at her and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his trunk, pulling it after himself as he made his way over to his parents.

  


“Ronald Weasley,” his father repeated, for the millionth time from the other side of the table, grey eyes burning into his with the force of liquid metal. “Harry Potter is one thing - the world loves him and associating with him can come in handy. I can see that. But the Weasley boy?! Not to mention the Mudblood!”

“Don’t call her that,” Draco muttered, though his voice was shaking slightly.

“Don’t you dare talk back to me, Draco!” his father thundered. “By Salazar, you’re the heir of the Malfoy family! Our family’s Pureblood Status can be traced back for centuries! Us Malfoys don’t associate with riffraff like the Weasleys or _Muggles_!”

“She’s not a Muggle!” Draco insisted, a little louder now. “She’s a witch and she’s bloody brilliant! Weasley may be an oaf, but of the many faults he has, the fact that his family doesn’t think Muggles are scum is not one of them!”

There was a moment of silence, and then, Draco found himself smacked right into the face. He was too stunned to react, or even to feel pain. Only when he heard his mother’s loud voice did he snap out of his shock.

“Lucius!” she bellowed, in a tone which he had never heard from her before. “Raise your hand against our son one more time and I swear you will regret it!”

“Did you hear what he just said?!” his father shouted. “Not only was he sassing me, but he was-”

“I have ears!” his mother interrupted him. “Still, I will not tolerate violence against him! Not for _any_ reason, Lucius!”

His father’s shoulders were rigidly tensed and his jaw was working furiously, but he fell silent under the gaze of his wife. Finally, his mother’s clear blue eyes fell on Draco, and some of the fierceness left them.

“Go up to your room, Draco,” she ordered, much softer. “I have to talk to your father. I will come up later.”

Draco nodded, feeling numb as he stood. His cheek was stinging painfully now, but he ignored it as he left his room and made his way up the stairs.

The house elves had brought Aquila and his trunk up to his room already. The owl was sitting on a perch near the window, hooting gently as he entered. Mutely, he walked over to pet his feathers.

It took about half an hour until his mother came up to see him. She knocked on the door softly, and when he called her in, she looked tired and grim.

“Let’s sit,” she suggested, and Draco nodded as he joined her in the elegant sitting corner near the door. Only now he noticed that the elves had left hot tea under a stasis charm on the couch table, and his mother moved to pour them each a cup as they made themselves comfortable on the three-piece suite.

“Here,” she said, giving him his cup and holding in for a moment as she caught sight of his face. She reached out to stroke a gentle finger over his bruised cheek, her eyes troubled. Then, she got out her wand and cast a quick healing spell. The pain immediately receded, though the skin still felt warm from the magic.

“Tell me about your friends,” she demanded, at last. “I want to hear about them.”

Draco gulped, and after a short moment of hesitation, he dove into a monologue about how he had met Harry at Diagon Alley, and how much Draco had wanted to be his friend. How he had met him again in the Hogwarts Express, this time with Weasley at his side. How Nott had turned all Slytherin’s against him (he left out the details of their abuse, too ashamed to admit to such weakness in front of his mother) and how Harry had stuck up for him. He skimmed over the details of how Hermione had joined their group and told her instead about how smart the Muggle-born girl was and how he genuinely liked her, despite her non-magical heritage. By the time he had finished, his mother’s eyes were thoughtful, and she was observing him carefully.

“I know it’s not what you wanted for me,” Draco concluded, his voice rough now. “But they’re my friends, and they’re important to me! Maybe not Weasley, so much. I could do without Weasley. But Harry and Hermione.”

His mother’s lips curled into almost a smile then. There was a moment of silence, in which Draco took a nervous sip of his tea, before she finally spoke.

“I’m glad to hear that you seem to have found people that care about you, and are looking out for you,” she said softly. “Especially when your house mates seem to be less than welcoming. I’m alarmed about Theodore’s behavior, though I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise. You two have never gotten along very well.”

“I think that’s an understatement,” Draco muttered. His mother chuckled, taking a sip of her own tea.

“If you think these children are worth befriending, and if they treat you well, I am not going to oppose your acquaintance with them,” she said, at last. “I trust your judgement, darling, and I want you to be happy. Just let me deal with your father.”

“He won’t ever be alright with this,” Draco reminded her. “You realise that, right?”

“Of course I do,” she ensured him. “But you’re your own person, and it’s your decision to make. Your father and I might not always know what is best for you, as much as we’d like to think otherwise. You won’t be the first boy to go against your parent’s expectations, and you surely won’t be the last. Times change, and your ideals might be different from ours. It will be on us to find a way to deal with that. Don’t let it be your worry.”

“So you really aren’t angry with me?” Draco checked, his throat tight.

“Oh, darling,” his mother whispered as she pushed his fringe off his forehead in an affectionate gesture. “If every mother condemned her son over a generational conflict, there would be disowned eleven-year-olds all over Hogwarts.”

Draco had to laugh at that, and suddenly, he felt very light, as if the entire weight of his worries had been lifted off his shoulders all at once. As long as his mother was on his side, Draco figured, he could deal with his father’s rage. 


	6. Chapter Five: Stones, Dragons, Unicorns And Could The Gryffindors Please Stay Out Of Trouble For Once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my dearest readers! Just dropping in to throw out one more chapter before the holidays, and wishing you all a very happy Christmas in advance! Hope you have a wonderful time! Thank you for all the love I always receive from your comments - they make my world a little brighter time and time again :) Now, enough talk. Please enjoy the new chapter!

“Okay, let me summarize,” Draco groaned, holding up one hand to stop Harry from babbling on and using the other to rub soothing circles into his painfully thumping temples. “While I was gone - which wasn’t, as I’d like to point out again, more than two weeks - you managed to get your hands on an invisibility cloak that used to belong to your father, roam the school at night, find a mirror that showed you your heart’s deepest desire, and run into Dumbledore while at it without getting expelled?”

“Um,” Harry returned, grinning sheepishly. “That sounds about right?”

“Why am I friends with you?” Draco asked, to no one in particular.

“Because you like me,” Harry chuckled. “Or at least, I think you do. It’s hard to tell, with the way you complain all the time.”

“Hilarious,” Draco snorted. He took a deep breath. “I guess a good friend would now hold you a lecture about how dangerous all of this was and how lucky you are. But I’m sure Hermione already did her share, so I’m going to drop it.”

“How kind of you,” Harry noted, his grin revealing how seriously he took Draco at the moment, which was not at all. Draco tried to feel offended, but couldn’t bring himself to.

“I guess I should be relieved,” Draco mused. “I fully expected to come back to new conspiracy theories about Snape.”

“Well,” Harry frowned, pursing his lips. “He’s not tried to kill me again, or to steal whatever Fluffy’s hiding, as far as we can tell.”

“Thank Merlin for that,” Draco noted, half sarcastic, half honest.

“How about you?” Harry asked, reaching for another Christmas chocolate that Draco had brought him from the Manor. “I see your Dad hasn’t killed you, either?”

“Only because Mother would murder him if he tried,” Draco sighed. “You should have seen his face when I said that I didn’t think to be Muggleborn was a bad thing, or that the Weasley family wasn’t scum.”

Harry made a face as he chewed his chocolate. When he’d swallowed, he prodded: “But your Mum is okay with it?”

“Yes,” Draco smiled. “She said she trusts my judgment.”

“I’m glad,” Harry replied, returning the smile.

  


As January passed and turned into February, things stayed calm for the most part, and Draco was fairly hopeful that Snape had given up his crazy plan in fear of getting caught. He was still over-the-top mean to Harry, of course, but as infuriating as Snape’s behaviour was, it was hardly life-threatening in any way.

It was in February, though, when Snape was announced as a referee for Gryffindor’s second match of the season, that all their prior worries crashed back down on them. While Draco knew that Hermione and Weasley’s immediate advice - for Harry to not play - was not going to do any good with their stubborn friend, he shared their fear that Snape might be refereeing just for the sake of getting rid of the danger that Harry presented.

“He can’t do much in front of Dumbledore,” Draco still tried to reason with them (and maybe a little with himself). “It’s one thing when he’s part of the crowd, but as referee, he’ll be in the centre of attention. It would be stupid of him to try and off Harry that publicly.”

He knew, though, that, despite Harry's outward agreement with him, his words did nothing to quench their nervousness. The whole school seemed to be buzzing with excitement over the match, seeing as with a victory, Gryffindor might be able to overtake Slytherin in the house championship: The Slytherins, including Snape, seemed to become even more vicious towards every Gryffindor they crossed, as if they could intimidate the one house known for its bravery with sheer antagonism. Draco, seeing as he was the only Slytherin who really didn’t care about the house championship (the importance of it paled a little in comparison to his best friend’s safety), got his good amount of heat, too, but he was so used to it that he was barely bothered. The Gryffindors, on the other hand, were in equal measures determined to grab their chance and apathetic of Snape’s refereeing.

Draco decided to attend the match on the Gryffindor stands with Hermione and Weasley, where, despite some suspicious looks, he was mostly left in peace. He guessed that most of Harry’s housemates were aware of their friendship, and knew he wasn’t there to gloat or start trouble.

“Why do you have your wands drawn?” Longbottom asked them in confusion, and Draco exchanged a quick look with the other two.

“Practicing wand movements,” he lied smoothly, and Hermione nodded, smiling brightly.

Longbottom looked confused, but he did not question them further.

“Now,” Weasley muttered when he had turned to talk to Thomas and Finnigan. “Any funny business from Snape, and we’ll send the Leg-Locker Curse straight at him.” Draco and Hermione nodded, expressions grim.

“Right. Be sure to remember the incantation, it’s-”

“We know the incantation, Hermione!” Draco interrupted her, anxious as the teams filed onto the field. “Please, just do us a favour and be quiet!”

It turned out they need not have bothered, though - it took merely more than a minute before Harry dived to the ground with intent, and caught the Snitch, giving Snape barely enough time to reward an undeserved penalty to Hufflepuff. All of a sudden, Draco found himself enveloped in unbridled Gryffindor euphoria, and he couldn’t help but grin along with them, because who cared if Slytherin had lost the lead for the stupid house cup; Harry was safe and sound, and that was all that mattered.

Seeing how everything had gone splendidly, they had not expected Harry to look frantic when he finally caught up with them after the match. He interrupted Weasley’s happy babbling with a sharp: “Nevermind that now! Let’s find an empty room! You wait till you hear this!” and dragged them off towards an unused classroom before he dived into a story about some encounter between Snape and Quirrell that Harry had happened to overhear. Draco did not dare ask how he had gotten close enough to spy on the teachers - Draco had a feeling he did not want to know - but he was mildly alarmed as Harry revealed the content of their talk to be the Philosopher’s Stone.

“So we were right!” Harry hissed. “It _is_ the Philosopher’s Stone, and Snape is trying to force Quirrell to help him get it! He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy. He said something about Quirrel’s ‘hocus-pocus’, so I reckon there are other things guarding the stone apart from Fluffy - lot’s of enchantments, probably - and Quirrell would have done some anti-dark arts spell Snape needs to break through!”

“Oh, dear,” Draco muttered, feeling another headache on its way.

“So you mean the stone’s only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?” Hermione asked in alarm.

“It’ll be gone by next Tuesday,” Weasley scoffed.

“Now, now,” Draco threw in, trying to reason with the others. “We might be underestimating Quirrell there!” When the other three only looked at him with raised eyebrows, he added: “Yes, sure, he seems like a barmy coward most of the time, but I’m sure he’s stood up to more danger than _Snape_ , or Dumbledore wouldn’t have hired him! And if Snape really threatens him, he can always go to Dumbledore for help!” His words were met with dubious silence, but Draco insisted: “It will be _fine!_ I’m sure Dumbledore knows what he’s doing! In any way, it’s better if we stay out of this!”

“Well,” Hermione said slowly, biting her lip. “It’s not like we can _do_ much, really. Who will believe us if we blame Snape without any proof?”

“Exactly!,” Draco nodded. “We’re not even supposed to know the bloody thing’s in the school! Let’s just stay out of this before we get in trouble!”

“I don’t like this,” Harry muttered darkly.

“You don’t have to like it,” Draco shot back. “Just don’t stalk Snape trying to find out what he’s up to!”

“I’m not _stalking_ Snape!,” Harry protested, but he looked satisfactory abashed and let the subject drop, much to Draco’s relief.

  


Thankfully, as the exams drew closer, neither of them had much time to think about Snape or the Philosopher’s Stone: Their homework began to increase drastically and Hermione fell into some kind of revision frenzy, pulling the boys down with her. Draco did not mind much - he spent every night in the Slytherin dorms studying as it was - but especially Weasley was complaining on top of his lungs, and Harry, Draco soon realized, did not have much patience for focused revision, either. Draco, who was much more patient with him than Hermione, tried to help out as best as he could, but it became easy to tell whenever those green eyes lost their focus and his mind wandered somewhere far from all their school work.

One of these afternoons spent in the library was interrupted by a shifty-looking Hagrid who had been trying desperately to hide the book about dragons he had checked out from their sight. Even Draco would not have believed his feeble suggestion that maybe Hagrid was just interested in the topic - the caretaker was anything but the studious type - so he followed the others down to his hut after dinner to investigate.

“We can also ask Hagrid about the enchantments hiding the stone!” Harry suggested. Draco groaned inwardly.

The curtains of Hagrid’s hut were closed tightly as they arrived, and when Hagrid had ushered them in after they had knocked, they entered what resembled a volcanic cave, judging by the temperature.

“Hagrid!” Draco groaned, immediately removing his robes. “It’s practically summer! What do you have the fire lit for?”

Hagrid just muttered something incomprehensible and offered them tea. As Harry eagerly started to question Hagrid about the safety measures concerning the Philosopher’s Stone, though, Draco was only listening with one ear. His attention kept drifting to the fire, first out of annoyance, then, once he had noticed a strange black shape in its midst, out of curiosity.

“Come on, Hagrid,” Hermione said in a smooth voice. “You might not want to tell us, but you _do_ know! You know _everything_ that goes on around here!”

Draco stifled a laugh at Hermione’s tactic of flattery, proud to see that she’d learned, and used the moment Hagrid cracked to get to his feet unnoticed.

“Let’s see,” Hagrid said. “He borrowed Fluffy from me, then some o’ the teachers did enchantments - Professor Sprout, Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall, Professor Quirrell, an’ Dumbledore did somethin’ himself, o’ course…” Draco quietly strolled over to the fire. “Hang on, I’ve forgotten someone... Oh, yeah, an’ Professor Snape!”

“Snape?!” Harry called incredulous, in the same moment that Draco glanced at the dark shape within the fire.

“Hagrid!” Draco squeaked, in a voice much too high. “Why is there a dragon egg in your fire?!”

Hagrid jumped up at that, eyes wide and guilty.

“Ehm,” Hagrid stammered. “Tha’s…”

“Where the bloody hell did you get a dragon egg, Hagrid?” Weasley asked, joining Draco by the fire and looking down at it in what was more interest than alarm. “”Must have cost you a fortune!”

Hagrid then proudly dove into the story of how he’d won the egg last night on a drink in the village and explained happily to them how he planned to hatch the egg and raise the dragon. Hermione, at least, Draco was glad to note, seemed as shocked about this as he was.

“Hagrid, you live in a wooden house!” she pointed out.

“Not only that!” Draco added. “You live a ten minutes walk from a _school_! Not only is it dangerous, but everyone could happen across it and report you to the Ministry! You know that dragon breeding isn’t allowed in Britain!”

“No one knew abou’ Fluffy, either,” Hagrid said airily.

“Apart from us, you mean,” he noted drily, but he could tell it was no use: Hagrid had that blissful glaze over his eyes that Draco associated with expectant mothers.

  


While Hagrid’s secret gave them something new to worry about and distracted Harry satisfactory from the stone, Draco now lived in constant fear of the news that their friend had been found out and fired. Befriending Gryffindors, he decided, had been a disastrous life choice for his nerves. One day he would snap and he’d have only his trouble-seeking, evil-teachers-crossing and dragon-hatching friends to blame for it. When the future Draco had pushed him towards Harry, he surely hadn’t known what the other boy would end up pulling him into, or he might have reconsidered.

It was a warm morning towards the end of April when Norbert, the baby Norwegian Ridgeback, hatched. Draco, who had always thought he possessed a certain affinity towards the creatures who had been his namesakes (or at least, the namesakes for the constellation he was named after), quickly changed his mind: Dragons might be fierce and majestic and nice to look at from afar, but he wanted none of them within a mile’s distance of him, thank you very much. Norbert hissed and bit and spit fire at them, but no matter how much they tried to convince Hagrid to just let Norbert go, he would not hear of it.

“He’s too small, he’d die,” Hagrid insisted, even though Draco, after Norbert had snapped for his fingers more than once and singed his robes, was pretty sure that the rapidly growing creature could watch out for himself.

In the end, when Harry suggested contacting Charlie, the Weasley’s second oldest working with dragons in Romania, Hagrid finally agreed. Thankfully, Charlie was as much of a Gryffindor as his brother, because he agreed to send some friends over to pick up the dragon at midnight on Saturday if they could bring him up to the tallest tower of Hogwarts.

“I’m coming along,” Draco announced the moment Harry told him.

“It’s better if you don’t,” Harry frowned. “It’s already dangerous as it is, but the more people we are, the bigger is the possibility of something going wrong.”

Draco bristled immediately at those words. The only thing worse than his Gryffindor friends getting him into trouble was them getting themselves into trouble _without him_.

“I see,” he glared. “So this is another _Gryffindors only_ thing of yours.”

“That’s not it!” Harry groaned. “It’s just - it’s _Ron’s brother_ , and you don’t need to get involved! It’s-”

“If you say ‘It’s got nothing to do with you’, I’ll hex you!” Draco warned. “You’re not the only one who cares about Hagrid!”

Harry looked at him pleadingly.

“I know you care,” Harry ensured him. “No one ever doubted you did. But we’d have to go all the way to the dungeons to pick you up with the invisibility cloak, and-”

“I’ll just wait at Hagrid’s,” Draco shrugged, jaw set in determination. “You can pick me and Norbert up together.”

“You’d spend a whole night with Hagrid and _Norbert_ just so we can take you along on a nightly trip to the highest tower that might get us expelled if we’re found out?” Harry demanded, an edge to his voice.

“Yes,” Draco returned stubbornly. “That’s exactly what I’ll do. Because without me, you _will_ end up getting yourself expelled, and I won’t stand for that!”

“I’ve snuck out plenty of times without you before,” Harry countered petulantly.

“Oh yes,” Draco rolled his eyes. “The time when Nott almost lured you into Filch’s arms, and that one time when Dumbledore caught you in front of that funky mirror, if I remember correctly? Yes, you’re truly an expert.”

Harry huffed, but he stopped fighting Draco, and it was better that he did, because Weasley, the oh-so-important-key to the operation, landed himself in hospital wing Saturday afternoon due to a bite on his hand, courtesy of Norbert, which meant he had to drop out of their mission. So Draco headed out for Hagrid’s hut after dinner and suffered through hours of a teary, emotional Hagrid and a hissing and spitting Norbert. Draco had spent the last half hour preparing Norbert’s travelling accommodations with Hagrid, including dead rats for him to snack, brandy, and an ugly teddy bear which Draco was sure would catch fire sometime throughout the journey, but that would not be his problem to deal with. When Harry knocked, it was only 20 minutes to midnight, meaning he was late.

“Sorry,” Harry gasped as he entered the hut. “Peeves.”

“Where’d you leave Hermione?,” Draco asked, frowning at the absence of their bushy-haired friend.

“How many people do you think this cloak can hide if we carry a basket?” Harry rolled his eyes. “It’s just you and me, since you were so dead-set on coming.”

Hagrid said his tearful goodbye before Harry and Draco heaved the crate containing the dragon up the tallest tower. The thing was ridiculously heavy, and had Draco not fought Harry so vehemently on coming along, he’d have complained.

Four of Charlie Weasley’s friends swooped down on their broomsticks and collected Norbert, taking off again after a friendly chat. Harry and Draco watched in relief as they flew out of sight, proud of their achievement.

Everything would have gone splendidly, if only they'd not run into Peeves on the way back. First Harry had almost forgotten the cloak due to his euphoria of having gotten rid of Norbert, but Draco had reminded him at the last moment. They could have as well left it up the tower, though, because Draco had ended up tripping over a bunch of crystal balls the poltergeist had nicked from the Divination classroom, sending both him and Harry crashing to the floor and causing the cloak to fall off their shoulders. As fate would have it, that had been the moment Filch had entered the room and caught them. He had woken Professor McGonagall _and_ Professor Snape to punish them. Their spitting rage was only rivalled by how mad Draco was at himself. He had come along to make sure Harry did not end up in trouble, and in the end, he'd managed to ruin the whole mission by behaving like a klutz who could not watch where he was going! 

By some stroke of luck, they did not get expelled, but 50 points were taken from each of them, and they got detention. Which, Draco realised, could have gone much, much worse, so he counted the small blessings, even as the Slytherin’s bullied him ever so harshly once the story of who had lost them 50 points in one night reached them. The Gryffindors, being the house of trouble-loving adventurers they were, did not seem to care as much about the loss of points, especially in the light of them keeping their position on top of the house championship despite the loss, but Harry took the new wave of animosity against Draco more to heart than Draco did himself.

“I shouldn’t have let you come,” Harry muttered as he helped Draco rinse out the scarlet paint that had been dumped onto Draco’s robes between classes.

“As if Hermione could have lived with you two losing 100 points for Gryffindor,” Draco scoffed. “At least _I_ ’m used to this. So no harm done.”

“No more meddling from now on,” Harry swore to him with a huff. “I won’t get any of us in trouble anymore.”

“It’s not like it’s your fault,” Draco sighed. “Though, mind you, I’d appreciate some quiet. I doubt you can stay out of trouble if you tried, though.”

“Well, watch me,” Harry vowed, and, much to Draco’s surprise, he seemed to be serious about it. When he overheard a conversation between Snape and Quirrell a few days later, suggesting that the latter might have cracked, Harry refused to investigate further or alert Dumbledore in fear of getting more people into trouble, and Draco thought that maybe, this whole ordeal had been worth something, after all.

  


For detention, they were called to the entrance hall to meet Filch at 11 o’clock that night. Draco was the first to arrive, and he had to listen to Filch reminiscing about the punishments of the old days for a good five minutes before Harry finally joined them. Not that Filch stopped talking about his deep-rooted desire to cause students physical pain as he led them out of the castle, but at least, he had Harry to exchange annoyed looks with. Harry, though, seemed to feel far more nervous about their punishment than Draco, but his face lightened up when they met Hagrid. This did not go unnoticed by Filch.

“I suppose you think you’ll be enjoying yourself with that oaf?” he sneered. “Well, think again, boy! It’s into the forest you’re going, and I’m much mistaken if you’ll all come out in one piece!”

This made Draco whirl around to stare at the caretaker, all his calmness gone.

“The forest?!” he called. “We can’t go in there at night! There’s all sorts of _things_ in there! Werewolves, I heard!”

“That’s your lookout, isn’t it?” Filch said cheerfully, thoroughly enjoying himself. “Should’ve thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn’t you?”

Draco tried to catch Harry’s eyes in panic, but the other boy was looking at Hagrid, who was approaching them in fast steps with Fang at his heels. Draco noted, with rising panic, that he was armed.

Hagrid sent off the caretaker gruffly and finally turned to Harry and Draco.

“Tell me he wasn’t serious,” Draco pleaded. “Tell me we’re not going into the forest!”

“Afrai’ we are, Draco,” Hagrid said grimly.

“But-” Draco began, though he held in when he felt Harry’s hand on his elbow.

“Nothing will happen to us when Hagrid is around,” he told him, squeezing his arm in a soothing gesture. Then he turned back to Hagrid. “What are we going to do in there?” he asked.

“I’m not goin’ ter lie, it won’t be a picnic,” Hagrid grumbled. He walked towards the edge of the forest with them, and pointed down a dark path leading into it. The light of Hagrid’s lamp shone ahead, though it did not help as much as Draco would have liked it to. “Look there! See tha' stuff shinin' on the ground? Silvery stuff? Tha's unicorn blood.”

“Oh, now I feel much better,” Draco muttered, receiving another squeeze from Harry, who had not removed his hand from Draco’s arm as if fearing the Slytherin would take off running if he let go.

“There’s a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat,” Hagrid continued, ignoring Draco. “This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We’re gonna try an’ find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery.”

“And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?” Draco asked, gulping.

“There’s nothin' in tha' forest tha' will hurt yeh if yeh’re with me or Fang,” Hagrid said offhandedly, and Draco willed himself to believe him.

As they made their way into the dark forest, it was Draco’s turn to hold onto Harry’s arm. He hated this, he thought quietly. Why couldn’t they just write lines or something? Have a normal detention? For a moment, he wondered what his parents would say if they knew what he was doing right now, but he pushed the thought away quickly. His father would probably think he deserved it for hanging out with the likes of Harry, Hermione and Weasley in the first place, and his mother would be so scandalised that she might still oppose his friendship to them, after all.

They soon reached a crossing of ways, and Hagrid sent Draco and Harry to the left with Fang, while he took the path to the right. This did not help Draco’s nerves, though Harry’s alert calmness was a small comfort.

“I don’t like this,” Draco muttered, still holding onto Harry and peeking into the shadows obsessively. “Do you feel like we’re being watched? Because it does feel like that to me.”

“Draco,” Harry sighed, though he was too tense to be completely unaffected. “It will be fine. Hagrid wouldn’t have taken us in here if he thought something might attack us.”

“He doesn’t know what the thing attacking unicorns is, though,” Draco pointed out. “Unicorns are fast. Much faster than we are.”

“They don’t have wands, though,” Harry shrugged. “We’ve handled a Mountain Troll. I think we are safe.”

“Trolls are stupid, though,” Draco muttered, but when Harry glared at him, he fell silent.

They continued walking, carefully lighting their paths with their wands, but they came across nothing for a long time. Just when Draco was starting to hope that Hagrid would find and catch whatever was doing the killing without them, though, the traces of blood on the path before them increased, indicating that they were right on the tracks of the unicorn.

It was then, that they came across a clearing, and Harry shot out his arm to stop Draco.

“Look -” he muttered, and Draco’s eyes focused on the bright white figure of the unicorn lying on the ground. They took a few, careful steps closer, but the creature did not move, and Draco was pretty sure it was dead. He was just turning to Harry to point this out and suggest they send up green sparks to alert Hagrid, when something moved in the bushes on Harry’s side, and they both froze.

A hooded figure rose from the bush and stalked towards the unicorn, bending down until the face touched the wound of the unicorn and-

Oh, Merlin.

Draco screamed. He used his hold on Harry’s hand to pull him backwards, but Harry stumbled. Fang had started to run, whimpering as he did, and Draco wanted nothing more than to follow him, but Draco’s scream had alerted the hooded figure, which had raised its head and was now watching them. Draco could not see its face; darkness hid it from his view. It rose to its feet again and moved over to them.

Draco pulled at Harry’s arm again, but the other let out a pained sound and only stumbled into Draco, seeming to lose his footing. Harry’s hand had flown to his forehead and he was clutching it, his face screwed up in pain, though his eyes were wide and focused on the creature approaching them.

“Harry!” Draco whimpered, pulling again, and then, the sound of hooves filled the air. Draco turned just in time to see another creature, this time four-legged, approach them in a wild gallop. Draco screamed again, and then pulled Harry to the ground, half-draping himself over his friend in a wild instinct.

The other creature jumped over them, and Draco closed his eyes. There was movement, but nothing touched them, and then, an eerie silence. When he dared to blink, the four-legged creature stood bent over them. With a gasp, he pushed Harry backwards, who made a sound of pained protest, but Draco just grabbed him and tried to crawl away in a desperate attempt to escape, to-

“There is no need to be afraid,” a clear, male voice said, and Draco froze, looking up.

The creature had the body of a palomino horse, but the body of a man. It stared at them with deep blue eyes and a worried expression.

“You’re a centaur,” Draco breathed, still slightly hysterical. The man nodded.

Harry looked up then, too, the painful grimace gone. His hand fell from his forehead, and he looked first at the centaur, then at Draco.

Are you alright?” the centaur asked, offering a hand both to Harry and to Draco.

“Yes,” Harry muttered, accepting the help, and only when Harry was back on his feet did Draco reach out to let himself be pulled from the ground, too. “Thank you. What _was_ that?”

The centaur did not answer. He only looked at Harry, observing him carefully. His eyes hung for a moment at Harry’s scar.

“You are the Potter boy,” he said. “You had better get back to Hagrid. The forest is not safe at this time - especially for you. Can you ride?,” he looked from Harry to Draco and back again. “It will be quicker this way.”

The centaur lowered himself onto his forelegs to allow them to mount him, and though Draco was weary - his parents had never spoken highly of centaurs - Harry showed no such reservations, swinging his legs over the centaur’s back immediately. Draco had no choice but to follow, clinging to Harry tightly as he did.

“My name is Firenze,” the centaur informed them as he stood again, but then, the sound of more hooves approaching them made him halt. Two more centaurs were galloping towards them, one looking outraged and angry (a lot more like Draco had imagined the creatures to look), the other nervous and gloomy.

“Firenze!” the first one called. “What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?” and then, they fell into a heated discussion which Draco could not follow very well. Harry’s name was mentioned again, and the heavens, and the unicorn, and in the end, Firenze took off with them, angry and determined.

Harry, feeling much more courageous than Draco, asked Firenze about the creature he had saved Harry and Draco from, and Firenze evaded the question, instead talking about the uses of unicorn blood, how the magical properties of the blood kept a person close to death alive, but cursed them in return.

“But who’d be that desperate?” Harry asked. “If you’re going to be cursed forever, death’s better, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Firenze agreed. “Unless all you need is to stay alive long enough to drink something else - something that will bring you back to full strength and power - something that will mean you can never die. Mr Potter, do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment?”

“The Philosopher’s Stone!” Harry gasped. “Of course - the Elixir of Life! But I don’t understand who-”

“Can you really think of nobody who has waited many years to return to power, who has clung to life, awaiting their chance?”

It hit Draco at the same moment as it hit Harry, and he felt like he was going to be sick. For years, he had heard his father talk about the Dark Lord and how he had had the right ideas about purity of blood and the rule of true wizards, and he had made it all seem so glorious, like a sacred mission.

“ _You cannot repeat any of this publicly,”_ his father had told him, his eyes glinting. _“I swore in front of the Wizengamot that I revoked my ways, and I need to play my part. So do you. But I want you to_ know _, Draco.”_

And Draco had believed it, all of it, until he had gotten that letter from the future. Until he had met Harry, who the Dark Lord had tried to kill along with his parents - a thought that made Draco feel even sicker. What if he had succeeded? He could not imagine his life without Harry. He had only known the boy for a couple of months, but he felt as integral to Draco’s life now as nothing else.

He could not let the person who had tried to kill him come back to power. He could not let it happen. It would put Harry in danger all over again.

They found Hagrid then, and Firenze left them in his care. He directed some words of caution to Harry before he left, and Hagrid questioned Harry about what had happened, but Draco could not listen. His head was buzzing. He wondered, feebly, if this was what a panic attack felt like. He only stared at Harry as the other talked, gesturing with his hands, and felt a strange, overwhelming urge to grab him and run away with him. To hide him away from the world in a place where no one would ever find him.

Draco knew then, clear as day, that he would do _everything_ to protect Harry from harm. Even if it meant standing in the way of the Dark Lord’s wand.


	7. Chapter Six: Down the Trapdoor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, my dear readers! We reached the second last chapter of the first instalment, and therefore, it is time for our golden quartett to make their way down the trapdoor and towards the stone. Large passages of this will be familiar, as always, but I hope Draco's presence will shake things up enough for you to enjoy reading it :)

Their end of term exams passed in a blur of worry over Harry and the Dark Lord. Draco was watching Snape closely whenever he crossed his path, almost more obsessed with ensuring the man did not get to the Philosopher’s Stone than Harry had been in the first place. Hermione and Weasley did not quite understand his fear. Hermione was sure that the Dark Lord would not dare to act right under Dumbledore’s nose, and Weasley reckoned that Hagrid would rather jump into the lake and hug the giant squid than letting down the Headmaster.

But as much affection as Draco held for Hagrid, he had no illusions about the man’s abilities to keep secrets: They had been able to tickle information out of him before, and Snape was much more experienced a Slytherin than Draco was. He figured that Hermione and Weasley just didn’t grasp the whole extent of the danger, seeing that they had not been in that forest with them. Draco, though, could not get the hooded shape of the Dark Lord out of his head, and neither could Harry, it seemed. It was a good thing Draco had spent every night for the last couple of months studying, because otherwise, he was unsure how he would have passed any of his exams. Thankfully, though, he had, and the answers came easily to him once he tried to shut out the worry and fear long enough to concentrate.

After his last exam, Transformation, he went out to join his Gryffindor friends outside by the lake. The weather was hot and they had decided to laze around outside after their respective exams and enjoy their newly won freedom (“That is, assuming I don’t doze off on my History of Magic exam,” Weasley had grumbled). He found them spread out on the grass, but just as he was approaching them, Harry suddenly jumped up, his eyes wide.

“I’ve just thought of something,” he could hear the other boy say, his voice unsettled. “We’ve got to go and see Hagrid, now.” And with that, he took off, right into the direction Draco was coming from.

“What’s wrong?” Draco asked, but Harry just grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Behind them, Hermione and Weasley struggled to keep up.

“Why, Harry?” Hermione panted.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit odd,” Harry called. “that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it’s against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don’t you think? Why didn’t I see it before?”

“You don’t mean,” Draco gasped, his eyes widening. “Snape?”

Harry’s mouth was set in a grim line as he nodded, curtly, and they continued hurrying down the grass slope towards Hagrid’s hut. When they reached it, Hagrid was sitting outside in an armchair, preparing ingredients for dinner.

“Hullo,” he called, smiling as he watched them approach. “Finished yer exams? Got time fer a drink?”

“Yes, please,” Ron muttered, but Harry cut him off, getting straight to the point and asking Hagrid about the night he had acquired Norbert. Hagrid, after some prodding, told them that he had played a hooded man in cards for the egg and that he had talked to him about Hogwarts and the creatures he cared for here.

“He had ter be sure I could handle it, he didn’ want it ter go ter any old home…” Hagrid explained, frowning as he tried to remember. “So I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon would be easy…”

Draco gaped at the giant gamekeeper with a sense of foreboding, and Harry asked, trying to sound casual: “And did he - did he seem interested in Fluffy?”

“Well - yeah - how many three-headed dogs d’yeh meet, even around Hogwarts? So I told him, Fluffy’s a piece o’ cake if yeh know how to calm him down, jus’ play him a bit o’ music an’ he’ll go straight off ter sleep-” He cut himself off with a look of horror that mirrored how Draco felt. “I shouldn’ta told yeh that!” he called. “Forget I said it!”

But Harry had already taken off running, and Draco, Hermione and Weasley struggled to keep up with him, ignoring Hagrid yelling after them. Only when they had reached the entrance hall did Harry stop and turn to face them.

“We’ve got to go to Dumbledore!" he announced, and Draco nodded eagerly.

“We do!” he agreed. “Too many things have happened, and we can’t let Snape get his hands on the stone!”

“Exactly!” Harry replied, looking around. “Where’s Dumbledore’s office?”

“Um,” Draco said eloquently, blinking.

“What are you doing inside?” a suspicious voice cut through their dialogue, and they whirled around the face Professor McGonagall frowning at them around a pile of books she was carrying.

“We want to see Professor Dumbledore,” Hermione answered, which seemed to make the Professor even more suspicious.

“Why?” she asked.

“Professor,” Draco said, stepping up. “We know this might sound strange, but we have reason to believe that someone has been poking around for information to get his hands on the Philosopher’s Stone, and succeeded. And if nothing’s done, this person will steal it and hand it to the Dark Lord and-” _and he will try to kill Harry_ , but Draco did not voice the last part, instead gulping and standing very straight, looking defiantly at their teacher, who was staring at him in open-mouthed shock, the books in her hands having crashed to the floor and splattered there.

“How-” she began, but Draco shook his head immediately.

“It doesn’t matter how we know,” he insisted. “What matters now is that precautions are taken, and for that, we need to tell Professor Dumbledore what we know.”

McGonagall stared at him long and hard, as if trying to read his mind, and reflexively, Draco tried to empty his head and fight down his emotions. It did not seem, though, like she was a Legilimens, because when she spoke, it was not in interrogation.

“I don’t know how you found out about the stone,” she began. “but rest assured, no one can possibly steal it, it’s too well protected.”

“But that’s the thing!” Draco called. “Someone found out how to get past your protections, and we need to tell-”

“Professor Dumbledore received an urgent owl from the Ministry and flew off to London at once,” she interrupted him. That made Draco hold in, eyes wide.

“He’s gone?” he repeated, looking around to meet Harry’s eyes.

“Yes,” McGonagall confirmed. “He will be back by tomorrow, so if you still feel the need to talk to him then-”

“But they might try tonight!” Harry called. “What if-”

“Potter,” McGonagall ground out impatiently. “There is no need to worry. Our protections have held for months, and they will hold another night. I know what I’m talking about. Now,” she said, bending down to pick up the books. “I suggest you go back outside and enjoy the sunshine.”

Draco opened his mouth again, ready to fight her, but Hermione caught his arm and shook her head. It was only when McGonagall was out of earshot that they spoke again.

“It’s tonight,” Harry muttered. “Snape’s going through the trapdoor tonight.”

“Of course he is,” Draco murmured, a note of panic in his voice. “He orchestrated this all fabulously. Dumbledore out of the way, none of the other teachers suspecting a thing…”

“But what can we-” Weasley began, though he stopped talking when Hermione gasped, staring, paralyzed, at something past Draco’s right shoulder. He turned slowly, and his heart sank when he found himself face to face with none other than Snape.

A thick silence fell upon them.

“Good afternoon,” Snape said smoothly, observing them with his sharp, dark eyes. “You shouldn’t be inside on a day like this."

“We were-” Harry began, but Draco stepped on his foot, silencing him. Snape looked from Harry to Draco, his eyes narrowing. Draco steeled himself, setting his jaw stubbornly and holding the gaze of his Head of House without backing down.

“You want to be more careful,” Snape said in a soft, dangerous voice that was laced with underlying threat. “Hanging around like this, people will think you are up to something.”

Draco pressed his lips tightly together, still not breaking their staring contest. _I won’t let you touch him_ , Draco thought, almost hoping that Snape, unlike McGonagall, would try to read his mind. “Be warned,” Snape continued, his eyes finally landing back on Harry, making Draco feel strangely satisfied. “any more nighttime wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled. Good day.”

And with that, he turned his back on them and walked away, disappearing into the staff room.

“Right,” Harry muttered, turning back to them. “Here’s what we’ve got to do.”

He suggested for Hermione to stand guard by the staff room while they watched the third-floor-corridor, but Draco quickly waved him off.

“This will never work,” he shook his head. “Hermione can’t just linger by the staff room forever, and someone will eventually catch us near the third-floor-corridor, especially after we spoke to McGonagall. Not to mention that Snape could dispose of us easily even if we blocked his way.”

“Do you have a better idea, then?” Harry demanded.

Draco stayed silent, thinking. Two of his basic instinct battled with each other: His rational sense for survival, and the knowledge that, if they crossed Snape’s path, it might not end well for them, versus the urgent need to protect Harry. He knew that they had to stop Snape before he got his hands on the stone and handed it to the Dark Lord - but what good would it do if they got themselves killed before they could achieve that?

“Let’s write to Dumbledore,” Draco suggested.

“The letter might not reach him in time!” Harry shook his head.

“And who says he’ll believe us even if it did?” Hermione muttered, biting her lip.

“Then we have to get to the stone before him,” Draco said, almost to himself.

Everyone blinked at him, perplexed.

“What?” Harry asked. “You mean, we - yes,” he took a deep breath, nodding. “You’re right. We have to go.”

“We don’t know how to get past the other enchantments, though,” Draco reminded him, biting his lip. “How are we going to-”

“We’ll have to risk it,” Harry shook his head.

“These enchantments were done by teachers to stop a fully-skilled wizard from getting his hands on the stone, Harry,” Hermione injected, her voice small. “You don’t actually think we will be able to-”

“We won’t know unless we try!” Weasley insisted. “Malfoy is right! We’ll have to do it!”

Draco was not sure which part shook him the most - the fact that he had just suggested they’d better head down a forbidden corridor to face a murderous three-headed dog and other dangerous and possibly deadly obstacles, or that Weasley had agreed with him.

  


Harry, Hermione and Weasley had been all for going down at night, after everyone had gone to bed, but Draco had quickly talked them out of that. Snape would probably wait until nighttime, to make sure his colleagues wouldn’t suspect anything, and if they wanted to be the first ones at the stone and _not_ cross paths with him, they would have to go earlier. Therefore he convinced Harry to pick up his invisibility cloak so they could start right away. They waited for him in an abandoned classroom on the second floor and slipped under the cloak when he returned. They had to hunch to be able to all fit, to the point where Draco felt like he was waddling rather than walking, but sacrifices had to be made.

It was only when they neared the third-floor corridor, having made sure no teachers were around to see the door opening and closing, and Draco could hear the restless grumbling of Fluffy muffled through the wood, that Draco turned to Harry.

“How are we going to get past Fluffy?” he asked in a whisper. “We don’t have any-” But he trailed off when Harry held up a clumsily carved flute.

“Christmas present from Hagrid,” he hissed, and Draco nodded.

Weasley reached out to heave the door open, and they slipped inside, completely unnoticed by the rest of the castle.

Draco had spent a lot of time imagining the monstrous dog from Harry’s words, but somehow, standing before it, after all, he still felt unprepared. All three heads of the dog growled and sniffed at the air, searching for the intruders he could not see. Draco was glad that Harry didn’t freeze the way Draco did - instead, he started playing the flute the moment the door had fallen closed behind him.

Despite Harry’s abysmal musical talent, the beast’s eyes immediately dropped at the sound of the flute, and soon, it had stretched out on the floor, all three heads snoring softly, as if they were in competition with each other. Weasley warned Harry to keep playing as they approached the trap-door, and pulled it open. There was no telling what expected them underneath - there were no stairs, only pitch-black darkness.

Harry insisted on being the one to go first, and he handed the flute to Hermione. As he started to lower himself, he warned them to not follow if anything happened to him - as if, Draco thought grimly - but to go and send Hedwig to Dumbledore instead. Then, he dropped.

Draco leaned over the hole and waited, heart hammering, for any sign of life. There was a damp sound of collision, softer than Draco had expected, and some shuffling, before Harry called: “It’s ok! It’s a soft landing, you can jump!”

Weasley followed first, and Draco went second. Draco almost landed on Harry, and all three of them shuffled back to make room for Hermione to land.

“What’s this?” Draco asked, frowning at the plant underneath them, which seemed to be moving, as if faintly angry at being disturbed. Before anyone could answer, though, Hermione had landed in front of them with a dull thumping sound.

“We must be miles under the school,” she muttered, breathless and anxious.

It was in that moment that Draco felt the tendrils of the plant sling around his wrist. He yelled and jumped up, pulling his arm to fight it off just in time. Hermione followed quickly, and they both backed up against the wall, escaping the plant with some effort, but it was too late for Harry and Weasley. They had been bound tightly by the plant’s tendrils and seemed to be pulled under by it.

“Stop moving!” Hermione called at them from next to him. “It’s a Devil’s Snare!”

Draco cursed, panicked. He made a step forward, thoughtlessly, as if to pull Harry out with his bare hands, but Hermione clung to Draco’s arm, holding him back. She was still shouting at them, and there were angry responses, but Draco could not listen to them. There was a rushing noise in his ears; a panic that drowned out everything else and made him unable to think.

He only snapped out of it when Hermione sent blue flames towards the plant, making it flinch away from their heat and allowing Harry and Weasley to free themselves and join them. They were panting, and Draco took deep, calming breaths as he slowly regained the feeling in his limbs.

“I hate this,” he muttered, mostly to himself. No one heard him. Hermione and Weasley were too busy bickering, and they only stopped when Harry urged them along.

They walked down an empty stone passageway, and the complete silence and darkness felt oppressive to Draco. He balled his fingers into a fist to keep them from shaking. His eyes drifted to Harry, who was walking ahead of them, shoulders tense and alert, but emanating a calmness that reminded Draco of their detention in the forest. Draco wished, for a moment, that he had Harry’s nerves or his courage. He felt stupid, trying to fight down what felt like a panic attack - this had been his idea, after all. But then again, the Sorting Hat hadn’t put him into Slytherin for nothing. He had a strong sense of self-preservation. His deep-rooted response to danger was to run, not to face it with his head held high.

But he had no choice, he reminded himself. Harry’s life was on the line.

“Can you hear something?” Weasley whispered suddenly.

They all held in, listening. Soft, dull sounds filtered through the air, but before Draco could identify them, the others were already discussing in soft whispers.

“Do you think it’s a ghost?”

“I don’t know… sounds like wings to me.”

“There’s light ahead - I can see something moving!”

They entered a bright chamber with little, bird-like shapes flying across the room. They held in at the doorway, and Draco blinked against the brightness, his eyes slowly adjusting to the light as he tried to recognize the flying creatures. Harry and Weasley were muttering next to him, and Harry was getting ready to run across the room when Draco grasped his arm, stopping him.

“Harry,” he muttered, pointing up. “Those are keys!”

“What?” Harry asked, following Draco’s gaze and gasping. Hundreds of keys in various shapes and forms were fluttering over their heads, their feathery wings making them resemble birds unless you looked closely.

Draco drew his eyes away from them, taking in the room. There was a wooden door on the other side, closed. Broomsticks were perched up against the wall beside it. It took no genius to figure out this one.

“One of these keys opens the door,” he said, pointing at the brooms. “We need to catch it.”

“But there are _hundreds_ of them!” Hermione pointed out.

Weasley took a careful step forward, and when the keys took no note of him, he walked over to the door, examining the lock.

“We’re looking for a big, old-fashioned one - probably silver, like the handle.”

It was harder than Draco had expected. The keys were faster than any Snitch and dove into flight every time one of them grabbed for them. Harry made good use of his Seeker reflexes, though: He was the first to spot the large silver key with blue wings, and the four of them cornered it until Harry could snatch it from the air.

It was a perfect fit, and the door unlocked. Being up on a broom and focused on the search had calmed Draco’s nerves a little, but they came back in full force as they stepped into the next room, which was too dark to make out anything in it. But as soon as they entered, the room lightened up, revealing a giant chessboard to their view.

It was pretty clear what they had to do here as well, and even Weasley understood immediately. The boy quickly took the lead, seeing as he was, arguably, the best chess player among them. They had to take the place of four black chess pieces - Hermione became a castle, Weasley a knight, and Harry and Draco took the positions of the two bishops. White started off the game, and Weasley played them across the room with remarkable skill. Draco paid close attention to his moves, especially when it became clear that the taken pieces were knocked out with the same violence that had always scandalized Hermione about Wizard’s Chess, but Weasley played an impeccable game, and Draco found no fault in his strategy.

It was when they strived closer to victory, though, that Draco had to interfere for the first time.

“Yes…” Weasley muttered, thoughtful and grim as his eyes skimmed over the board. “It’s the only way… I’ve got to be taken.”

Harry and Hermione yelled in protest, arguing with Weasley, but Draco scanned the board, going through every possibility in his head.

“There’s another way,” he said suddenly, pointing to a stray pawn at his right.

“That’s too dangerous, Malfoy!” groaned Weasley, glaring at him. “They might move the King, and then-”

“Let them,” Draco shrugged. “We’re in no hurry, are we? It’s worth prolonging the game if we all come out unscathed.”

“We need to grasp the chance while it’s there!” Weasley protested heatedly. “We can’t risk losing our dominant position!”

“We have time!” Draco stressed. “We can afford to give away one chance. No one knows we’re here, and it’ll be hours before Snape can steal down here. Who knows what other things we’ll have to face next! Those were four tasks, meaning there’s three more ahead. We can’t afford to lose anyone now.”

Weasley huffed, opening his mouth to argue back, but Harry cut him off.

“Draco is right!” he insisted. “We’re not giving up anyone unless we absolutely have to, Ron! Play the pawn!”

Ron rolled his eyes, but at Harry’s words, he retaliated. And it was worth it, in the end: It was a close call, and almost all their other pieces were lost, but Weasley managed to checkmate the black king about twenty minutes later. The giant chess pieces bowed in defeat and let the four of them pass, and they exited the room into the next dark passageway.

“What do you reckon is next?” Harry asked, keeping his voice low.

“We’ve had Sprout’s, that was the Devil’s Snare,” Hermione muttered, counting the tasks down on her fingers. “Flitwick must have put charms on the keys - McGonagall transfigured the chessmen to make them alive - that leaves Quirrell’s spell, and Snape’s…”

“And Dumbledore’s,” Draco reminded her as they reached the next door. His nerves were tingling feebly again, but Draco pressed down on them decisively.

Harry pushed the door open, and an overwhelming smell of rotten food greeted them. The smell pulled at Draco’s memories, but before he could place it, an angry growl greeted them, and Draco screamed as they, once again, we’re faced with an angry mountain troll.

“Not again,” Weasley muttered faintly, and then, they had to duck as the troll swung its heavy club at them.

It was a team effort this time. Hermione levitated the club in an imitation of Weasley’s move on Halloween. Harry kicked the troll when it went for Hermione, distracting it from attacking their friend, who let the club drop in shock. Draco stung the troll in the leg with fire, making it roar and let off Harry, turning to Draco instead. Which gave Weasley enough time to levitate the club a second time and knock the troll out with it before it could reach Draco.

“I should consider this as a professional career,” Weasley noted, rather smugly, as they fled the room to escape the stench. “I seem to be rather good at knocking out trolls.”

Draco opened his mouth to note that his success was probably down to his IQ being similar to a troll's, but he closed it again - not the moment for smart remarks, he decided. Especially not after Weasley had shown more use on their little mission than Draco had, realistically speaking. Instead, he focused his thoughts in another direction.

“Was that one Snape’s?” Draco asked, dubious. “He let the troll into the castle on Halloween, supposedly, and he wouldn’t have bothered Quirrell about getting past a troll if-”

But they reached the next door then, and he fell silent. Harry exchanged a look with them before he pulled it open. Inside, they found a dimly lit room, in its centre a table with a variety of potions perched on it.

“I think this one’s Snape’s,” Harry pointed out, frowning. “What do we have to do?”

Draco frowned, staring at the bottles, confused at this turn of events. With the way Snape had threatened Quirrell, he had expected a powerful curse from their Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor. Snape could have easily dealt with a troll. Something about this did not add up, and he was going to voice this as Harry stepped into the room.

Hermione yelped then and pulled both Draco and Weasley forward as well, just in time to escape the purple flames that suddenly sprang to life in the doorway. Draco scanned the room and saw that black flames were covering the doorway on the other side of the room, too.

“Great,” Weasley muttered. “What now?”

“Look!” Hermione called, picking up a rolled parchment from the table. She unrolled it and read out a poem, but Draco, still too occupied with the matter of the troll, was unable to take it in fully.

“ _Brilliant_ ,” Hermione said, obviously relieved, when she was done. “This isn’t magic - it’s logic - a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever.” She then proceeded to solve the riddle, and Draco left her to it, strolling around, gazing into the fire and thinking.

Why had Quirrell chosen a troll in the first place, with the way he had obviously been frightened by the creature’s entrance to the castle at Halloween? Wouldn’t he have chosen something he could control and others couldn’t, the way Hagrid had done? And wasn’t it too much of a coincidence that two different teachers would choose trolls in matters regarding the Philosopher’s Stone? Sure, if Snape had known about the troll, he might have stolen Quirrell’s idea and used it as distraction to get to the stone himself on Halloween, but the fact that he had threatened Quirrell did not fit that picture. They were missing something here. What were they missing?

“Got it,” Hermione announced, drawing Draco out of his mulling. “The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire - towards the stone.”

“There’s only enough for one of us,” Harry pointed out. “That’s hardly one swallow.”

“Maybe it will fill up again once one of us passed through?” Ron asked hopefully.

“I doubt it,” Hermione frowned. “It’s probably the point of this task that only one person can pass at a time. And we’ll still be in here even when Harry leaves, which I assume the magic of this room must sense.”

There was a moment of silence, before Harry asked: “Which one will get you back through the purple flames?” Hermione pointed at one of the bottles. It was slightly bigger than the other one, enough that it could probably be divided between two or three people, if one was careful. Maybe it would even suffice for all four of them. “I’ll go in,” Harry announced, taking a deep breath. “You wait here, and if I’m not back in half an hour, you go up and write to Dumbledore.”

“No,” Draco said immediately. “There’s no way you’re going alone.”

“There’s no other way!” Harry argued. “You heard Hermione!”

“But-”

“Harry’s right, Draco,” Hermione injected, biting her lip. “There’s no other way. One of us needs to go, and Harry is probably best suited.”

“I agree,” Weasley nodded. “Let Harry go.”

Draco gnawed at his bottom lip, trying to find some argument against this insanity. Under normal circumstances, he’d have agreed. Harry kept a cool head in dangerous situations the way none of them did, least of all Draco, and while he was not as logical as Hermione or Draco, he was definitely more likely to see through any traps on his own than Weasley. Harry, though, was also the person Draco was most scared for, and the most likely to react impulsively, and therefore put his life at risk.

“Draco,” Harry said softly, touching the Slytherin’s shoulder and meeting his eyes. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

“We’ve come down here to make sure the Dark Lord can’t get his hands on the stone to come back and hurt you,” Draco reminded him in a tight voice. “It will have been for nothing if you get hurt while trying to protect it.”

“Not only I will be in danger if Voldemort comes back to power,” Harry muttered, making all three of them flinch at the usage of the name, but ignoring it. “ _Everyone_ will be in danger. We can’t just stand back and do nothing.”

“There’s no need for you to sacrifice yourself!” Draco hissed.

“I was aware of the dangers when I agreed to do this,” Harry said with grim determination. “I _am_ okay with getting hurt if it means I can stop Voldemort from coming back. Aren’t you?”

Draco gulped. Honestly, he did not know if he would have done this if Harry wasn’t directly threatened. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have. He would have looked elsewhere and convinced himself the danger was not as immediate as it seemed. It was fear for Harry alone that had spurned him on. But when he looked over at Hermione and Weasley, he saw the same look of grim determination on their faces that Harry spotted.

The Gryffindors were all ready to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Stupidly courageous and noble, the lot of them. They made Draco feel terribly selfish, for wanting to protect his friend over the rest of the world.

“Fine,” Draco said, very quietly. “But if you get yourself killed-”

“You’ll do what? Kill me again?” Harry asked, the corners of his lips twitching.

“I’ll find a way to do it,” Draco promised darkly. “Slytherin, remember? We’re very resourceful.”

Harry chuckled, a real smile spreading across his face. It made Draco smile back, if only reluctantly. Harry squeezed his shoulder once more, before turning back to the potions.

“Okay,” he nodded, picking up the tiny bottle. “I’m ready.”

Draco watched nervously as the other boy drank the potion and made his way through the black fire. With a grin thrown at them over his shoulder, he opened the door, and then he was gone.

There was silence between the remaining three as they waited. Draco paced the room, kneading his fingers in nervousness. Weasley stared at the door Harry had disappeared through, not once moving his eyes away. Hermione was fumbling with the parchment, unrolling it to reread it and checking the potions, just for something to do.

“Hermione,” Draco said finally, willing his thoughts away from Harry and back to what had been bothering him earlier. “Can we be sure that it was Snape who let in the troll on Halloween?”

Hermione looked up at him in confusion, and even Weasley turned his eyes away from the door to stare at Draco.

“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled.

“Don’t you think it’s odd,” Draco frowned, stopping his pacing to look at her. “That a troll turns up on Halloween, and Quirrell finds it, and then he turns out to have used a troll to protect the stone? Why would he have done that, if he could not deal with them?”

“He might have used the troll _because_ it scares him,” Ron argued.

“It’s still not exactly the best protection, if a bunch of First Years can knock one out two times in a row,” Draco pointed out. “But even disregarding the stupidity of it, don’t you think it’s all too big of a coincidence?”

Hermione looked at him, contemplating.

“I see what you mean,” she admitted. “But Snape was the one who got hurt trying to get past Fluffy. He was the one who tried to get rid of Harry after he’d seen the wound. I saw him do it. And he was the one threatening Quirrell.”

“But why would he threaten Quirrel like this over a stupid troll?” Draco demanded. “It makes no sense! Snape could deal with a troll if we can!”

“He could,” Hermione nodded, biting her lip. “You’re right.”

“We’re missing something,” Draco continued. “There must be something we’ve overlooked, or misunderstood, because-”

But in that moment, the door Harry had disappeared through opened again, and the other boy returned, looking triumphant. He had a big blood-red stone clutched in his left hand.

“You got it!” Weasley exclaimed, letting out a whoop of joy.

“The Mirror of Erised is behind that door,” Harry explained, grinning. “I looked at it, and my reflection put the stone into my pocket. Suddenly, it was there.”

“Just like that?” Hermione asked, perplexed. “Shouldn’t that have been harder? Why would Dumbledore just hand the stone to anyone who looked into that mirror?”

“I don’t know, Hermione,” Harry shrugged. “But we have it, and now we should get out of here before Snape arrives."

“We should,” Draco agreed, picking up the bottle Hermione had pointed out to get them through the purple flames, looking at it closely. “We’ll have to be careful just to drink a small sip each so no one gets stuck here.”

He handed the bottle to Hermione first, then Harry, before he took a sip himself - he did not trust Weasley to measure his gulp correctly, the way he always wolfed down his food - and when they had all drunk, they made their way through the flames and out of the door.

As they made their way through the passageways, Draco tried to guess how much time had passed. How long had they been down here? It was sure to be evening, but how late exactly would it be? Would they be able to escape unseen before Snape, or whoever it was that was after the stone, made their way down to get it?

Just as he was pondering this, they could hear the sound of dampened footsteps from the distance. Draco froze. So did the others.

“No,” Draco whispered, looking at Harry, who hastily shoved the stone into the pocket of his trousers. Draco desperately tried to think of a place to hide. If only they had already passed the chessboard, they could have kept to the shadows there - but they had only just left the room with the unconscious troll, and there were no shadows or hidden corners there.

The footsteps grew louder. Harry stood a little straighter and grasped his wand, as if getting ready for a fight. Draco wanted to laugh. Harry didn’t really think they stood a chance against Snape or anyone else in league with Voldemort? They hadn’t even learned to defend themselves against unfriendly attacks yet! The best they could do was throw a nasty hex at them and run!

At this thought, Draco also grasped his wand, going through every helpful spell he had ever learned, or just heard of. They were now able to make out the shape of a man in the distance. Draco’s heart sank. Even from far away, that purple turban was clearly recognizable.


	8. Chapter Seven: Slytherin Loyalty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We reached the last chapter of this instalment :D I hope you'll enjoy it, and that you'll stick with me for Draco's 2nd year :)

“It’s Quirrell,” Harry muttered, sounding relieved, but Draco grabbed his arm and shook his head at him. “What?” hissed Harry, frowning.

“Don’t trust him,” Draco breathed. He caught Hermione’s eyes over Harry’s shoulder, and she nodded once.

“P-P-Potter,” Quirrel stuttered as he approached them, shuddering as he took a look around the dark corridor. “W-W-What are you d-doing down here?”

“How did you know we were here?” Draco demanded, rather bravely, he thought. It was as if the need to protect Harry was giving him the courage he had been missing before.

“P-P-Professor M-McGonagall found you m-m-missing,” Quirrel explained haltingly. “S-She sent me-”

“She would have come herself,” Draco narrowed his eyes, staring at Quirrell hard. He ordered himself to show no fear. “You’re here because of the stone, aren’t you?”

Quirrell stopped quivering at his words, and a slow smile spread across his face.

“Very good, Mr Malfoy,” he praised, amused. “You _are_ your father’s son, after all. I did not think you had it in you.”

“I’m nothing like him!” Draco sneered. “We won’t let you get to the stone! We alerted Dumbledore, and he’s on his way!”

“ _He’s lying_ ,” a high voice hissed, in rather breathy tones. Draco’s eyes widened and looked around frantically. The others did, too. The voice had not come from Quirrell.

“You’re clever, Malfoy,” Quirrell smiled. “But not clever enough. You, like your Head of House, might have seen through me, but none of you has it in you to stop me. Now, tell me - where is the stone?”

It was Hermione who answered, but her voice was trembling and weak.

“We - we haven’t yet - we were just -”

“ _Potter,”_ the second, disembodied voice breathed, making Draco shudder. _“The Potter boy has it._ ”

Quirrell’s eyes zoomed in on Harry, who was still looking at Quirrell in shock.

“Mr Potter,” Quirrell smiled, stretching out his hand, palm up, waiting. “If you’d please?”

“Never,” Harry spat, shaking his head. “You’ll have to kill me.”

Draco refrained from groaning in despair and willed Harry to not give the other man ideas.

“ _Let me speak to him…_ ” the disembodied voice instructed, and Draco took a shaky breath, looking around once more for the source of the voice. There was none. “ _Face to face…_ ”

“Master, you’re not strong enough,” Quirrell muttered, his eyes unseeing, as if he was talking to himself.

It dawned on Draco then. He eyed the turban, and panic came rushing to his ears. They had to get out of here. _Now_.

“ _I have strength enough for this…”_ the voice said, and Quirrell, obeying, reached up to untie his turban.

It seemed like both Weasley and Draco had the same idea at the same time.

“ _Petrificus Totalus!”_

“ _Locomotor Wibbly!”_

Draco pulled at Harry’s arm the moment he had fired the spell, trying to get the frozen boy to move. Next to Harry, he saw Weasley reach for Hermione, but they did not come far. Quirrell deflected their spells wandlessly, and with another wave of his hand, he procured flames behind him, blocking their way.

Draco yelped, and Hermione shrieked. Weasley cursed under his breath. Quirrell, though, was still smiling as he let the turban fall to the floor and turned around.

Both Draco and Hermione screamed. Harry’s hand flew to his forehead, and he let out a pained gasp. A face was staring at them from the back of Quirrell’s head, and it had glinting red eyes and slits where a nose should have been.

“ _Harry Potter_ ,” it said. Harry, his hand still pressed to his forehead, seemed still frozen. Unable to move, he stared up at the face in horror. “ _See what I have become? Mere shadow and vapour…”_

It kept talking, but Draco could not hear what it said. There was a rushing panic dulling his ears once more, and it seemed to overwhelm him. The Dark Lord. This was the Dark Lord, and he was going to kill them. He was going to be forced to watch his friends die, watch _Harry_ die, and then die himself. And there was nothing he could do. Nothing at all.

The rushing sound only dampened slightly when Harry stumbled backwards, breaking Draco’s grasp on his arm. It was like a bucket of cold water in Draco’s face.

“ _Don’t be a fool,_ ” said the _thing_ that was the Dark Lord. “ _Better save your own life and join me... or you’ll meet the same end as your parents… They died begging me for mercy…”_

“LIAR!” Harry shouted.

“ _How touching…”_ the Dark Lord hissed. “ _I always value bravery… Yes, boy, your parents were brave…”_

Draco desperately tried to catch the eyes of Hermione, of Weasley, but both seemed stunned, just staring up at the Dark Lord's face in horror. They had to do something! Draco wanted to scream at them.

“NEVER!” Harry yelled at something the Dark Lord had said, and Draco, out of options, sent the Full Body-Bind at Quirrell’s back. He grabbed Harry once more and ran, towards the fire. Maybe he could cast an _Aguamenti_ at it, he thought furiously, but as they tried to run past Quirrell, the man, having repelled the hex once more, seized Harry’s arm. Harry screamed in pain and struggled, and Draco pulled at him, but quite suddenly, Quirrell let go of Harry, yelling in pain himself. Draco looked around wildly, seeing that Quirrell was cradling his fingers, gasping.

Both Hermione and Weasley sent their own hexes at Quirrell, but with a wave of his hand, they were suddenly thrown backwards. They hit the stone wall hard and crumbled to the floor, unmoving.

“NO!” Harry yelled.

“ _Seize him! SEIZE HIM!”_ the Dark Lord called.

Quirrell jumped at Harry, knocking him off his feet. Draco, in an instinct, grasped Quirrell by the shoulders and pulled, trying to get him off his friend. He could not follow what was happening. Quirrell was yelling, and so was the Dark Lord, and then, there was a shout of pain. Harry had grabbed Quirrell’s face and was pressing his fingers to it with an expression of fevered determination. There was more screaming, and then Quirrell rolled off him, weeping in pain. Harry, his own face screwed up in pain, too, rolled after him, continuing to reach for Quirrell’s face, which Draco now saw was blistering as if burned. All the while, the Dark Lord was shouting at Quirrell to just kill Harry, and suddenly, everything was still. Both Harry and Quirrell had collapsed on the floor, and Draco fell to his knees to pull Harry away. He shook his shoulders, panicked.

“Harry!” he called. “Wake up! You can’t be dead! Wake up!”

Over his fear, Draco did not notice the vapour rising from Quirrell’s still body. It formed an indistinct shape, and then, just as Draco looked up, it lurched at him. Draco screamed, and everything went black.

  


When Draco woke, he was in the hospital wing. He felt sluggish, and it took a moment for him to regain memory of what had happened. When he did, he sat up so quickly that the world was spinning around him.

It was dark, and the only source of light was the half-closed door to Madam Pomfrey’s office. Draco could hear voices from it, but he couldn’t focus enough to identify them. Instead, he looked around, searching…

Hermione was in the bed next to him, her eyes closed, her breathing even. Two other beds were occupied on the other side of the infirmary, but it was too dark for Draco to make out the faces of the people lying in them.

Draco threw his blanket back and got to his feet shakily. He felt dizzy, but he needed to make sure Harry was here. That he was alive. He stumbled across the room and almost fell, but he caught himself at the foot of what turned out to be Weasley’s bed. He, too, was fast asleep, unaware of Draco’s presence.

The other bed held a mob of unruly dark hair, almost hiding the scar on its occupant’s forehead. The dingy glasses lay on the bedside table. Draco breathed in deeply, and his legs gave out underneath him. He sank to the floor, and the noise seemed to alert the people in the office, for the voices ceased very suddenly. The door opened fully, and Madam Pomfrey peeked into the room.

“Mr Malfoy,” she hissed, approaching him in fast steps. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“Harry,” Draco muttered weakly.

“Mr Potter will be fine,” she informed him in a low voice, heaving him to his feet and half-carrying him back to his bed. “And so will be Mr Weasley and Ms Granger. There is nothing to worry about. You need to rest.”

“But-” Draco got out, with some difficulty. “Quirrell - the stone - “

“There is no need to worry, Draco,” said another soft voice, making Draco look over the school nurse’s shoulder. There, in the darkness, stood Professor Dumbledore, looking down at him with a kind expression. “Professor Quirrell won’t be able to harm anyone in the future. And the stone is safe.”

“But-” Draco muttered, feeling his strength leave him as he spoke. “The Dark Lord-”

“Has gone back into hiding,” Dumbledore smiled. “You and your friends are safe. Please make sure to rest. You need it. I will explain everything in due time.”

Draco wanted to say something more, but his eyes fell closed, and he was gone.

  


Draco, Hermione and Weasley were released from the hospital wing the very next day, but it took Harry three days to wake up. They spent as much time at his bedside as Madam Pomfrey would allow. When he did end up waking, though, they had been down at Hagrid’s. Dumbledore had been there, though, and he had filled Harry in about everything that had happened, which was, in the end, how they acquired the missing pieces of information: That Quirrell had died by Harry’s hands, a side effect of the protection his mother had left on him when she had sacrificed her own life for his. That the stone had been destroyed. That Snape’s dislike for Harry stirred from an old schoolboy rivalry with Harry’s father, but that, despite their suspicions, he had tried to protect Harry all year. Draco could have cared less about the explanation, though - he was just relieved that his best friend was well and out of danger.

Harry was released in time for the end-of-year feast, in which Gryffindor, quite unsurprisingly, ended up winning the house cup. What _was_ a surprise, though, was that all four of them received fifty points each for their houses - Weasley for “the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years”, Hermione for “the use of cool knowledge in the face of fire”, Harry for “pure nerve and outstanding courage”, and Draco for “unwavering loyalty in the face of great danger”.

Draco, in a moment of silence, had been agonizing about his own uselessness during those many, many tasks. Hermione had brought them past the Devil’s Snare and Snape’s riddle, Weasley had won the chess match for them and knocked out the troll, Harry had caught the key and gotten the stone - what had Draco done, apart from cowering in fear and putting together that Quirrell was the one after the stone about a moment before they happened upon him?

Loyalty, he thought, resisting the urge to snort to himself as Dumbledore announced his doubtful forte to the rest of the school. When had he become such a _Hufflepuff_?! _‘They call Hufflepuff students loyal in lack of any other useful treats,’_ his father had always scoffed, and Draco had believed it. What could you buy yourself from loyalty?

But as Harry had met his eyes, smiling brightly and cheering louder than any Slytherin did, he thought that maybe, if loyalty was what had brought Harry out of there alive, he could live with being known for it.

It turned out not to be his only quality. When exam results were announced, Draco ended up second best of the year, right after Hermione. Harry passed with good marks, too, and even Weasley came out above average.

On the way back to London, Harry was about as subdued as Draco. Both dreaded the prospect of going home, though, Draco conceded, he at least had his mother on his side. Harry had no one. Draco had not heard much about Harry’s Muggle relatives, but he knew enough to realise that Harry was not wanted there, and it made Draco feel slightly nauseous that his best friend would have to spend two months in their midst. He wished he could have offered him to stay at the Manor, the way Weasley had promised to invite him to the Burrow, but even if his father had allowed it, Draco knew that Harry would rather stay with the Muggles than come to his home. Draco couldn’t blame him. His only consolation was the owls they were sure to exchange, both stuck in places they did not want to be, isolated from all of their friends.

Only Draco’s mother was waiting for him at the platform, which was a relief. He took his time saying his goodbyes to Harry and Hermione (and exchanged a cordial nod with Weasley) before strolling over to her. She smiled and bent down to kiss his cheek.

“Welcome back, darling,” she said. “Did you have a nice term?”

“Mostly,” Draco shrugged, and his mother raised an amused eyebrow. “I guess you heard about…”

“Your little adventure?” she quipped, humming. “Let’s just say your father broke a vase when he received the letter.”

“A nice one?” Draco enquired, because he had nothing else to say.

“No, a horrid family heirloom from grandfather Abraxas,” she shuddered. “I was looking for an excuse to get rid of it for years.”

“Well,” Draco smirked. “You’re welcome?”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she put a hand on his shoulder and led him towards the exit. Draco threw a look at Harry, who was chatting with Mrs Weasley. His friend looked up, as if feeling Draco’s eyes on him, and smiled, waving. Draco waved back, and Aquila made a hooting sound from his cage.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For updates on this series, I would suggest subscribing to or just watching the Series! Thank you so much for your lovely comments and all your support! I love you :D


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